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MIND AND HAND 

MANUAL TRAINING 
THE CHIEF FACTOR IN EDUCATION 



By CHARLES H. HAM 

BEING THE THIRD EDITION OF 

MANUAL TRAINING, THE SOLUTION 
OF SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS' 

ILLUSTRATED 




NEW YORK •:• CINCINNATI •:• CHICAGO 

AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 



iX 



YVSTO COPIES RECEIVED, 

Library of CefigfttSIb 
Offleo of tilt 

my 7 - 1900 

KegUttr of C«pyrlgktft 



• tr 1 1) SKCONO COPY. 

59066 

Copyright, i886, by Harper & Brothers. 
Copyright, 1900, by Charles H. Ham. 

A /I 7'ights reserved. 
W. P. I 



PEEFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 



The work of which this is the third edition has been 
before the public of this country, England, and all Eng- 
lish-speaking countries since 1886 — thirteen years. As 
it proposes a revolution in educational methods, it was not 
to be presumed that it would escape criticism. But, while 
the reviews of it have been numerous, they have, on the 
whole, been very generous. My most radical postulates 
have, however, been received by educators of the old re- 
gime with expressions of emphatic dissent. In presenting 
the third edition of the work I have, therefore, thought 
it wise to support the text with many high authorities in 
the form of foot-notes. As was to be expected, my analy- 
sis of Greek history and character provoked the severest 
criticism. It is regarded, indeed, as conclusive evidence 
of gross ignorance of the entire subject. To meet the 
charge of ignorance, I have made a large number of cita- 
tions from Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Plutarch, 
and others — authors consulted, originally, in the prepara- 
tion of this part of the work. I may venture to observe, 
with due deference to those schoolmen who regard the 
ancient Greeks as an ideal people, that I have searched 
contemporaneous history in vain for evidence of the ver- 
ity of this claim ; and I am hence constrained to adhere 
firmly to the extreme views expressed in the text.' And 
if these views are correct, it follows that the passion for 



iv PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 

Greek models in education is not only a mental dissipa- 
tion, but a moral crime. 

The other new notes are commended to the careful 
consideration of the reader, as the fruit of my added 
years of research and reflection. 

The Appendix contains a compilation, in tabular form, 
of all the facts obtainable from orio^inal sources, throuo^h 
the aid of a skilled statistician, showing the phj'sical 
progress of Manual Training in this country, and the 
chief countries of Europe, during the last fifteen years. 

In this edition the disguise of the first edition is drop- 
ped. In that edition a certain school was referred to as 
"the Chicago school," whereas it was, in fact, purely an 
ideal school, which had no existence except in the mind 
of the author. But it embodied educational theories and 
ideas of Comenius and other great men which the author 
desired to see adopted. That desire not having been re- 
alized, I content myself here by quoting the observation 
of Oscar Browning as to the proneness of the school- 
master to neglect opportunities: "The more we reflect 
on the method of Comenius, the more shall we see that 
it is replete with suggestiveness, and we shall feel sur- 
prised that so much wisdom can have lain in the path of 
school-masters for two hundred and fifty years, and that 
they never stooped to avail themselves of its treasures." 

It is proper to state that the terms "Kindergarten," 
"Manual Training," and "The N"ew Education," are used 
throughout the work as equivalents. 

The change of title to "Mind and Hand: Manual 
Training the Chief Factor in Education" — is made in 
response to the common and just criticism of the original 
title as too narrow for the broad treatment of the subject 
which characterized the text. 



PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. v 

The notes prepared especially for this edition will be 
found at tlie ends of the chapters to which they respec- 
tively belong. 

Wherever in this work apparent discrimination in favor 
of the male sex is indulged through the employment of 
the pronoun "he," "his," or "him," rather than the cor- 
responding feminine parts of speech, it is merely appar- 
ent, not real; for I urge the co- education of the sexes 
as I urge the co-education of Mind and Hand, because 
the woman is the complement of the man as the hand is 
the complement of the mind. For I believe, with John 
Stuart Mill, that "The true virtue of human beings is 
fitness to live together as equals; and to enable them to 
live together as equals, tliey must be associated in educa- 
tion"; and with Mary Wollstonecraft, that "Virtue will 
never prevail in society till the morals of both sexes are 
founded on reason, and till the affections common to both 
are allowed their due strength by the discharge of mutual 
duties." 

The Authoe. 
New York City, March, 1900. 



PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION. 



In 1879 I read a paper before the Chicago Philosoph- 
ical Society on tlie subject of "The Inventive Genius; 
or, an Epitome of Human Progress." Tlie suggestion of 
the subject came from Mr. Charles J. Barnes, to whom I 
desire in this public way to express my obligation for an 
introduction to a profoundly interesting study, and one 
which has given a new direction to all my thoughts. 

At the conclusion of my labors in the preparation of 
the paper, I realized the force of Bacon's remark, that 
"the real and legitimate goal of the sciences is the en- 
dowment of human life with new inventions and riches." 

In tracing the course of invention and discovery, I 
found that I w^as moving in the line of the progress of 
civilization. I found that the great gulf between the 
savage and the civilized man is spanned by the seven 
hand-tools — the axe, the saw, the plane, the hammer, the 
square, the chisel, and the file — and that the modern 
machine-shop is an aggregation of these tools driven by 
steam. I hence came to regard tools as the great civil- 
izing agency of the world. With Carlyle I said, "Man 
without tools is nothing ; with tools he is all." From 
this point it was only a step to the proposition that. It is 
through the arts alone that all branches of learning find 
expression, and touch human life. Then I said. The true 
definition of education is the development of all the powers 



viii PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION. 

of man to the culminating point of action; and this pow- 
er in the concrete, the power to do some useful thing for 
man — this must be the last analysis of educational truth. 

These ideas are not new. They pervade Lord Ba- 
con's writings, are admirably formulated in Kousseau's 
"Emile," and were restated by Mr. Herbert Spencer 
twentj^-tive years ago. More than this, Comenius, Pesta- 
lozzi, and Froebel attempted to carry them into practi- 
cal operation in the school-room, but with only a small 
measure of success. It remains for the age of steel to 
show how powerless mere words are in the presence of 
things, and so to emphasize the demand for a radical 
reform in educational methods. 

In 1880 my attention was drawn to the Manual Train- 
ing Department of the Washington University of St. 
Louis, Mo. In that school I found the realization of Ba- 
con's aphorism, "Education is the cultivation of a just 
and legitimate familiarity betwixt the mind and things." 
I made an exhaustive stndy of the methods of the St. 
Louis school, and reached the conclusion that the philos- 
opher's stone in education had been discovered. The col- 
umns of the Chicago Tribune were opened to me, and 
I wrote constantly on the subject .for the ensuing three 
years. Meantime the Chicago Manual-Training School 
(the first independent institution of the kind in the world) 
was founded and opened, and the agitation spread over 
the whole country, and indeed over the whole civilized 
world. 

This work was commenced two years ago. I found 
the labor mucli more arduous than I anticipated, and its 
completion has hence been delayed far beyond the time 
originally contemplated for placing it in the hands of a 
publisher. It may be summarized briefly as consisting 



PREFACE TO FIRST EDiTION. ix 

of four divisions: 1. A detailed description of the vari- 
ous laboratory class processes, from the first lesson to the 
last, in the course of three years. 2. An exhaustive ai-- 
gument a jposteriori and a fortiori in support of the 
proposition that tool practice is highly promotive of in- 
tellectual growth, and in a still greater degree of the 
upbuilding of character. 3. A sketch of the historical 
period, showing that the decay of civilization and the 
destruction of social organisms have resulted directly 
from defects in methods of education. 4. A brief sketch 
of the history of manual training as an educational force. 

To Dr. John D. Rnnkle, of the Massachusetts Institute 
of Technology, the founder of manual training as an ed- 
ucational institution in this country, I cannot express 
too strongly my deep obligation for valuable suggestions 
and constant encouragement. To him also am I indebt- 
ed for nearly all my illustrations, as also particularly for 
the excellent portrait of M. Victor Delia Yos, the found- 
er of the new system of education in Russia. I am also 
under obligations to Col. Augustus Jacobson, a leading 
advocate of the new education, for constant counsel and 
support, as also to Dr. Henry H. Belfield, Director of the 
Chicago Manual Training School, and Mr. John S. Clark, 
of Boston. 

Of the authors consulted, I cannot forbear mention of 
Lord Bacon, Rousseau, and Herbert Spencer, whose great 
works constitute the foundation of the new system of ed- 
ucation according to nature. Nor can I omit to acknowl- 
edge, with all the emphasis of which words are suscepti- 
ble, my obligations to Mr. Samuel Smiles. His works, 
from the li/es of the engineers to the shortest of his bi- 
ographies, constitute an inexhaustible treasure-house of 
facts from which I have draw^n without stint. Mr. Smiles 



X ' PKEFACE TO FIRST EDITION. 

has traced the springs of English greatness to their true 
source, the workshop. I liave attempted to continue liis 
office by showing that the workshop is a great education- 
al force, and hence that its educational element ought to 
be incorporated in the system of public instruction. 

The propositions of the following pages involve an ed- 
ucational revolution destined to enlighten, and so ulti- 
mately to redeem manual labor from the scorn of the 
ages of slavery, and, in the end, to render the skilled la- 
borer worthy of high social distinction, thus presenting 
at once a solution not only of the industrial question but 

of the social question. 

Charles H. Ham. 



INTKODUCTION TO THE THIRD EDITION 

By Col. Francis W. Parker, 
Principal of the Chicago Norma] School. 



The last twenty-five years have broiiglit much of in- 
trinsic value into American education. E-apid increase 
in population and ever-changing conditions have made 
imperative demands for schools adequate to self-govern- 
ment. 

The Kindergarten led the way to other substantial re- 
forms in education, and called attention to the actual needs 
of childhood. It proved conclusively that hand-work is 
one of the dominant interests of the child, and demon- 
strated the absolute, dependence of brain-growth upon 
Manual Training. 

Manual Training is thus a direct outcome and sequence 
of the Kindergarten. It supplies a need for which there 
is no substitute. The belief that that which is begun in 
the Kindergarten should be continued and expanded in 
all upper grades, forcesitself more and more upon thought- 
ful minds. Modern psychology brings its potent evidence 
as to the tremendous value of the work of the hand in the 
building of the brain. The trend of educational thought 
will always be in the direction of hand training as a fun- 
damental element in education. 

Twenty-five years ago Manual Training was little known 
in this country as a factor in education. Charles H. Ham, 



xii INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD EDITION. 

imbued with a fervid patriotism, saw clearly that one of 
the intrinsic needs of education — an absolute necessity in 
the evolution of a democracy — is the training of the whole 
being, hand, brain, and soul, through educative work. He 
was, indeed, a pioneer, beginning his work when there was 
very little attention given to this important subject, and 
at a time, too, when it was opposed by nearly all leading 
educators. 

Mr. Ham, together with Colonel Jacobson, brought a 
strong influence to bear upon tlie Commercial Club of 
Chicago, to found a Manual-Training school. This school 
is now a department of the Chicago University and has 
been in successful operation for thirteen years. There 
are in Chicago to-day tlie Armour Institute, the Lewis 
Institute, and the Jewish Manual -Training School, all 
prominent and well established. There is also a high 
school for Manual Training in connection with the public 
schools, and, best of all, there are indications which show 
that hand-work is making its way throughout the grades. 

Mr. Ham, without doubt, had a strong influence upon 
the late George M. Pullman, which led him to provide, 
through his will, for a Manual-Training school for the 
children of the city which he built. 

Manual-Training schools are now maintained in almost 
every city in the Union. Much remains to be done be- 
fore Manual Training takes its true place in education. 
The majority of these schools now in existence are for 
boj^s who have graduated from the grammar school, which 
leaves the years between six and fourteen with little or 
no hand-work. Thus the most important period for brain- 
growth through hand activity is neglected. 

The future of Manual Training is to introduce hand- 
work as the principal factor in the first four j^ears' work. 



INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD EDITION. Xiii 

to be continued in the four years of the grammar grades, 
and correhited with all otiier subjects. Indeed, tlie ideal 
is to introduce Manual Training in all courses of study, 
from the Kindergarten to tlie Univei'sity, inchisive. 

The patrons of Cook County Normal School owe to 
Mr. Ham the establisliment of Manual Training in con- 
nection with the primary grades of the scliool, nearly fif- 
teen years ago; for without the practical aid he gave it, 
it could not have been accomplished at that time. The 
children — indeed, all the people of this country — owe 
him an immense debt of gratitude for his heroic cham- 
pionship of hand-work. 

Manual Training gives a true dignity to labor; it calls 
attention to the place of hand-w^ork in human ))i-ogress, 
and as civilization g(.)es on it will have a higher and. stiil 
higher place in the hearts of the people. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 
THE IDEAL SCHOOL. 

Its Situation. —Its Tall Chimney.— The Whir of Machinery and 
Sound of the Sledge-hammer. —The School that is to dignify 
Labor.— The Realization of the Dream of Bacon, Rousseau, Co- 
menius, Pestalozzi, and Froebel.— The School that fitly represents 
the Age of Steel Page 1 

CHAPTER II. 

THE MAJESTY OF TOOLS. 
Tools the highest Text-books — How to Use them the Test of 
Scholarship— They are the G-auge of Civilization— Carlyle's Apos- 
trophe to them.— The Typical Hand-tools- The Automata of the 
Machine-shop.— Through Tools Science and Art are United.— The 
Power of Tools— Their EducationaJ Value.— Without Tools Man 
is Nothing; with Tools he is All.— It is through the Arts alone 
that Education touches Human Life 7 

CHAPTER HI. 
THE ENGINE ROOM. 

The Corliss Engine — A Tidng of Grace and Power — The Growth 
of Two Thousand Years — From Hero to Watt — Its Duty as a 
School-master.— The Interdependence of the Ages.— The School 
in Epitome o 14 

CHAPTER IV. 
THE DRAWING-ROOM. 

Twenty-four Boys bending over the Drawing-board.— Analysis and 
Synthesis in Drawing.— Geometric Drawing.— Pictorial Drawing. — 
Tlie Principles of Design.— The Esthetic in Art.— The Funda- 



xvi CONTENTS. 

mentals — Object and Consiructive Drawing. — Drawing for the 
Exercises in the Laboratories. — The Educational Value of Draw- 
ing—The Language of Drawing. — Every Student an expert 
Draughtsman at the end of the Course Page 16 

CHAPTER V. 

THE CARPENTER'S LABORATORY. 

The Natural History of the Pine-tree — How it is Converted into 
Lumber, what it is Wortli, and how it is Consumed. — Where the 
Students get Information. — Working Drawings of the Lesson. — 
Asking Questions. — The Instructor Executes the Lesson. — Instruc- 
tion in the Use and Care of Tools. — Twenty-four Boys Making 
Things — As Busy as Bees. — The Music of the Laboratory. — The 
Self-reliance of the Students 21 

CHAPTER YI. 

THE WOOD-TURNING LABORATORY. 

A Radical Change — From the Square to the Circle; from Angles 
to Spherical, Cylindrical, and Eccentric Forms.— The Rhythm of 
Mechanics. — The Potter's Wheel of the Ancients and the Turning- 
lathe — The Speculation of Holtzapffels on its Origin. — The Greeks 
as Turners. — The Turners of the Middle Ages.— George III. at the 
Lathe. — Maudsley's Slide-rest, and the Revolution it wrought. — 
The Natural History of Black-walnut.— Tlie Practical Value of 
Imagination— Disraeli's Tribute to it; Sir Robert Peel's Want of 
it. — The Laboratory animated by Steam. — The Boys at the Lathes 
— Their Manly Bearing. — The Lesson 30 

CHAPTER VIL 

THE FOUNDING LABORATORY. 

The Iron Age. — Iron the King of Metals. — Locke's Apothegm. — The 
Moulder's Art is Fundamental.— History of Founding — Remains 
of Bronze Castings in Egypt, Greece, and Assyria. — Layard's Dis- 
coveries.— The Greek Sculptors.— The Colossal Statue of Apollo 
at Rhodes.— The Great Bells of History.— Moulding and Casting 
a Pulley.— Description of the Process, Step by Step.— The Furnace 
Fire.— Pouring tlie Hot Metal into the Moulds.— A Pen Picture of 
the Laboratory. — Thus were the Hundred Gates of Babylon cast. — 
Neglect of the Practical Arts by Herodotus.— How Slavery has 
degraded Labor.— How Manual Training is to dignify it 45 



CONTENTS. xvii 

CHAPTER VITI. 

THE FORGING LABORATORY. 

Twenty -four manly-looking- Boys with Sledge-hanamerin Hand — their 
Muscle and Brawn. — The Pride of Conscious Strength. — The Story 
of the Origin of an Empire. — The Greater Empire of Mechanics. — 
The Smelter and the.Smith the Bulwark of the British Government. 
— Coal — its Modern Aspects; itsEarly History; Superstition regard- 
ing its Use. — Dud. Dudley utilizes "Pit-coal" for Smelting — the 
Story of his Struggles ; his Imprisonment and Death. — The Eng- 
lish People import their Pots and Kettles. — "Tlie Bhist is on and 
the Forge Fire sings." — The Lesson, first on the Black-board, then 
in Red-hot Iron on the Anvil. — Striking out the Anvil Chorus — 
the Sparks fly whizzing through the Air. — The Mythological His- 
tory of Iron. — The Smith in Feudal Times — His Versatility. — 
History of Damascus Steel. — We should reverence the early In- 
ventors. — The Useful Arts finer than the Fine Arts. — The Ancient 
Smelter and Smith, and the Students in the Manual - training 
School Page 58 

CHAPTER IX. 

THE MACHINE-TOOL LABORATORY. 

The Foundery and Smithy are Ancient, the Machine-tool Shop is 
Modern. — The Giant, Steam, reduced to Servitude. — The Iron Lines 
of Progress — They converge in the Shop ; its triumphs from the 
Watchspring to the Locomotive. — The Applications of Iron in Art 
is the Subject of Subjects. — The Story of Invention is the History 
of Civilization. — The Machine-maker and the Tool-maker are the 
best Friends of Man. — Watt's Great Conception waited for Autcr 
matic Tools ; their Accuracy. — The Hand-made and the Machine- 
made Watch.— The Elgin (Illinois) Watch Fnctory.— The Inter- 
dependence of the Arts. — The making of a Suit of Clothes. — The 
Anteroom of the Machine-tool Laboratory. — Chipping and Filing. — 
The File-cutter. — The Poverty of Words as compared with Things. 
— The Graduating Project. — The Vision of the Instructor 78 

CHAPTER X. 
MANUAL AND MENTAL TRAINING COMBINED. 

The new Education is all-sided— its Effect. — A Harmonious Devel- 
opment of the Whole Being.— Examination for Admission to the 
Chicago School. — List of Questions in Arithmetic, Geography, and 



xviii CONTENTS. 

Language. — The Curriculum. — The Alternation of Manual and 
Mental Exercises. — The Demand for Scientific Education — its 
Effect. — Ambition to be useful Page 105 

CHAPTER XI. 

THE INTELLECTUAL EFFECT OF MANUAL TRAINING. 

Intelligence is the Basis of Character. — The more Practical the In- 
telligence the Higher the Development of Character. — The use of 
Tools quickens the Intellect. — Making Things rouses the Attention, 
sharpens the Observation, and steadies the Judgment. — History 
of Inventions in England, 1740-1840. — Poor, Ignorant Apprentices 
become learned Men. — Cort, Huntsman, Mushet, Neilson, Ste- 
phenson, and Watt. — The Union of Books and Tools. — Results at 
Rotterdam, Holland ; at Moscow, Russia; at Komotau, Bohemia; 
and at St. Louis, Mo. — The Consideration of Overwhelming Im- 
port 113 

CHAPTER XII. 
THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN A NECESSITY. 

The Difference between Ancient and Modern Systems of Education. 
— Plato Blinded by Half-truths. — No place in the present order of 
things for Dogmatisms. — Education begins at Birth. — The Influ- 
ence of Women extends from the Cradle to the Grave. — The Crime 
of Crimes — Neglect to educate Woman. — The Superiority of 
Women over Men as Teachers — Froebel discovered it. — Nature 
designed Woman to Teach ; hence the Importance of Fitting her 
for her Highest Destiny 123 

CHAPTER XIII. 
THE MORAL EFFECT OF MANUAL TRAINING. 

Mental Impulses are often Vicious; but the Exertion of Physical 
Power in the Arts is always Beneficent — hence Manual Training 
tends to correct vicious mental Impulses, — Every mental Impres- 
sion produces a moral Effect. — All Training is Moral as well as 
Mental. — Selfishness is total Depravity; but Selfishness has been 
Deified under the name of Prudence. — Napoleon an Example of 
Selfishness. — The End of Selfislmess is Disaster ; but Prevailing 
Systems of Education promote Selfishness.— The Modern City an 
Illustration of Selfishness. — The Ancient City. — Existing Systems 
of Education Negatively Wrong. — Manual Training supplies the 
lacking Element. — The Objective must t;ike the Place of the Sub- 
jective in Education. — Words without Acts are as dead as Faith 
without Works. „ 180 



CONTENTS. xix 

CHAPTER XIV. 

THE MIND AND THE HAND. 

The Mind and the Hand are Allies; the Mind speculates, the Hand 
tests its Speculations in Tilings. — The Hand explodes the Errors of 
the Mind — it searches after Truth and finds it in Tilings. — Mental 
Errors are subtile ; they elude us, but the False in Things stands 
self-exposed. — The Hand is the Mind's Moral Rudder. — The Organ 
of Touch the most Wonderful of the Senses ; all the Others are 
Passive ; it alone is Active. — Sir Charles Bell's Discovery of a 
"Muscular Sense." — Dr. Henry Maudsley on the Muscular Sense. 
— The Hand influences the Brain. — Connected Thought impossible 
without Language, and Language dependent upon Objects ; and 
all Artificial Objects are the Woik of the Hand. — Progress is there- 
fore the Imprint of the Hand upon Matter in Art. — The Hand is 
nearer the Brain than are the Eye and the Ear. — The Marvellous 
Works of the Hand Page 144 

CHAPTER XV. 
THE POWER OF THE TRAINED HAND. 

The Legend of Adam and the Stick with which he subdued the Ani- 
- mals. — The Stick is the Symbol of Power, and only the Hand can 
wield it. — The Hand imprisons Steam and Electricity, and keeps 
them at hard Labor. — The Destitution of England Two Hundred 
and Fifty Years ago : a Pen Picture.— The Transformation wrought 
by the Hand: a Pen Picture. — It is due, not to Men who make 
Laws, but to Men who make Things. — The Scientist and the In- 
ventor are the World's Benefactors. — A Parallel between the Right 
Honorable William E. Gladstone and Sir Henry Bessemer. — Mr! 
Gladstone a Man of Ideas, Mr. Bessemer a Man of Deeds. — The 
Value of the latter's Inventions. — Mr. Gladstone represents the Old 
Education, Mr. Bessemer the New 157 

CHAPTER XVL 

THE INVENTORS, CIVIL ENGINEERS, AND MECHANICS 
OF ENGLAND, AND ENGLISH PROGRESS. 

A Trade is better than a Profession. — The Railway, Telegraph, and 
Steamship are more Potent than the Lawyer, Doctor, and Priest. — 
Book-makers writing the Lives of the Inventors of last Century. — 
The Workshop to be the Scene of the Greatest Triumphs of JNIau. 
— The Civil Engineers of England the Heroes of English Progress. 



X CONTENTS. 

— The Life of James Brindley, the Canal-maker ; his Struggles and 
Poverty. — Tlie Roll of Honor. — Mr. Gladstone's Significant Admis- 
sion that English Triumphs in Science and Art were won without 
Government Aid.— Disregarding the Common-sense of the Savage, 
Legislntors have chosen to learn of Plato, who declared that "The 
Useful Arts are Degrading." — How Improvements in the Arts have 
been met by Ignorant Opposition. — The Power wielded by the 
Mechanic Page 170 



CHAPTER XVII. 

POWER OF STEAM AND CONTEMPT OF ARTISANS. 

A few Million People now wield twice as much Industrial Power as 
all the People on the Globe exerted a Hundred Years ago. — A 
Revolution wrought, not by the Schools and Colleges, but by the 
Mechanic. — The Union between Science and Art prevented by the 
Speculative Philosophy of the Middle Ages. — Statesmen, Lawyers, 
Litterateurs, Poets, and Artists more highly esteemed than Civil 
Engineers, Mechanics, and Artisans. — The Refugee Artisan a 
Power in England, the Refugee Politician worthless. — Prejudice 
against the Artisan Class shown by Mr. Galton in his Work on 
"Hereditary Genius." — The Influence of Slavery? it has lasted 
Thousands of Years, and still Survives 184 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

AUTOMATIC CONTRASTED WITH SCIENTIFIC 
EDUCATION. 

The Past tyrannizes over the Present by Interposing the Stolid Re- 
sistance of Habit.— Habits of Thought like Habits of the Body 
become Automatic. — There is much Freedom of Speech but very 
little Freedom of Thought • Habit, Tradition, and Reverence for 
Antiquity forbid it.— The Schools educate Automatically.— A glar- 
ing Defect of the Schools shown by Mr. John S. Clark, of Boston. 
— The Automatic Character of the Popular System of Education 
shown by the Quincy (Mass.) Experiment.— Several Intelligent 
Opinions to the same Effect.— The Public Schools as an Industrial 
Agency a Failure.— A Conclusive Evidence of the Automatic 
and Superficial Character of prevailing Methods of Education in 
the Sciiools of a large City.— The Views of Colonel Francis W. 
Parker.— Scientific Education is found in the Kindergarten and 
the IManualtraining School.— "The Cultivation of Familiarity 
betwixt the Mind and Things." 191 



CONTENTS. xxi 

CHAPTER XIX. 

AUTOMATIC CONTRASTED WITPI SCIENTIFIC 

EDUCATION— (7<?n^umed 

The Faihire of Education in America shown by Statistics of Rail- 
way and Mercantile Disasters. — Shrinkage of Railway Values 
and Failures of Merchants. — Only Three per Cent, of tliose en- 
tering Mercantile Life achieve Success. — Business Enterprises 
conducted by Guess: Cause, Unscientific Education. — Savage 
Training is better because Objective. — Mr. Foley, late of the 
Massachusetts Institute of Teclinology, on the Scientific Character 
of Manual Education — Prof. Goss, of Purdue University, to the 
same Effect— also Dr. Belfield, of the Chicago Manual-training 
School. — Students love the Laboratory Exercises. — Demoralizing 
Effect of Unscientific Training. — The Failure of Justice and Leg- 
islation as contrasted with the •Success of Civil Engineering and 
Architecture Page 210 



CHAPTER XX. 

AUTOMATIC CONTRASTED WITH SCIENTIFIC 
'E^DJJCATION— Continued. 

The Training of the Merchant, the Lawyer, the Judge, and the Leg- 
islator contrasted with that of the Artisan. — The Training of the 
Merchant makes him Selfish, and Selfishness breeds Dishonesty. — 
Professional Men become Speculative Philosophers, and test their 
Speculations by Consciousness. — Tiie Artisan forgets Self in the 
Study of Things.— The Search after Truth.— The Story of Palissy. 
— The Hero is the Normal Man ; those who Marvel at his Acts are 
abnormally Developed. — Savonarola and John Brown. — The New 
England System of Education contrasted with that of the South. — 
American Statesmanship— its Failure in an Educational Point of 
View. — Why the State Provides for Education; to protect Prop- 
erty. — The British Government and the Land Question. — The Thor- 
oughness of the Training given by Schools of Mechanic Ait and In- 
stitutes of Technology as shown in Things. — Story of the Emperor 
of Germany and the Needle-maker. — The Iron Bridge lasts a Cen- 
tury, the Act of the Legislator wears out in a Year.— The Cause 
of the Failures of Justice and Legislation. — The best Act is the Act 
that Repeals a Law ; but the Act of the Inventor is never Repealed. 
— Things the Source and Issue of Ideas ; hence the Necessity of 
Traioing in the Arts 229 



xxii CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XXI. 

EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM— HISTORIC. 

EGYPT AND GREECE. 

Fundamental Propositions.— Selfishness the Source of Social Evil; 
Subjective Education the Source of Selfishness and the Cause of 
Contempt of Labor ; and Social Disintegration the Result of Con- 
tempt of Labor and the Useful Arts.— The First Class-distinction 
— the Strongest Man ruled ; his First Rival, the Ingenious Man. — 
Superstition.— The Castes of India and Egypt— how came they 
about? — Egyptian Education based on Selfishness. — Rise of Egypt 
— her Career ; her Fall ; Analysis thereof. — She Typifies all the 
Early Nations : Force and Rapacity above. Chains and Slavery 
below. — Their Education consisted of Selfish Maxims for the Gov- 
ernment of the Many by the Few, and Government meant the Ap- 
propriation of the Products of L^abor. — Analysis of Greek Charac- 
ter — its Savage Characteristics. — Greek Treachery and Cruelty. — 
Greek Venality. — Her Orators accepted Bribes. — Responsibility of 
Greek Education and Philosophy for the Ruin of Greek Civiliza- 
tion. — Rectitude wholly left out of her Scheme of Education. — 
Plato's Contempt of Matter : it led to Contempt of Man and all his 
Works. — Greek Education consisted of Rhetoric and Logic ; all 
Useful Things were hence held in Contempt .Page 247 

CHAPTER XXII. 

EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM— HISTORIC. 

ROME. 

Vigor of the Early Romans — their Virtues and Vices ; their Rigorous 
Laws; their Defective Education; their Contempt of Labor.— Sla- 
very : its Horrors and Brutalizing Influence. — Education Confined 
to the Arts of Politics and War; it transformed Courage into 
Cruelty, and Fortitude into Stoicism. — Robbery and Bribery.— The 
Vices of Greece and Carthage imported into Rome.^Slaves con- 
struct all the great Public Works; they Revolt, nnd tlie Legions 
Slaughter them.— The Gothic Invasion.— Rome Falls.— ^False Phi- 
losophy and Superficial Education promoted Selfishness. — Deifica- 
tion of Abstractions, and Scorn of Men and Things. — Universal 
Moral Degradation.— Neglect of Honest Men and Promotion of 
Demagogues.— The Decline of Morals and Growth of Literature.— 
Darwin's Law of Reversion, through Selfishness to Savagery. — 
Contest between the Rich and the Poor.— Logic, Rhetoric, and 
Ruin 259 



CONTENTS. xxiii 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

EDUCATION \ND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM— HISTORIC. 

THE MIDDLE AGES. 

The Trinity upon which Civilization Rests: Justice, the Arts, and 
Labor; and tliese Depend upim Scientific Education. — Reason of 
the Failure of Theodoric and Charlemagne to Reconstruct the 
Pagan Civilization. — Contempt of Man. — Serfdom. — The Vices of 
the Time: False Philosophy, an Odious Social Caste, and Igno- 
rance. — The Splendid Career of the Moors in Spain, in Contrast. — 
Effect upon Spain of the Expulsion of the Moors. — The Repressive 
Force of Authority and the xiti'ocious Pliilosophy of Contempt of 
Man. — The Rule of Italy — a Menace and a Sneer. — The work of 
Regeneration. — The Crusades. — The Destruction of Feudalism. — 
Tlie Invention of Printing. — The Discovery of America. — Investi- 
gation. — Discoveries in Science and Art Page 274 



CHAPTER XXIV. 
EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM— HISTORIC. 

EUROPE. 

The Standing Army a Legacy of Evil from the Middle Ages. — It is 
the Controlling Feature of the European Situation.— Its Collateral 
Evils: Wars and Debts. — The Debts of Europe Represent a Series 
of Colossal Crimes against the People ; with the Armies and Na- 
vies they Absorb the Bulk of the Annual Revenue. — The People 
Fleeing from them. — They Threaten Bankruptcy ; they Prevent 
Education. — Germany, the best-educated Nation in Europe, losing 
most by Emigration. — Her People will not Endure the Standing 
Army. — The Folly of the European International Policy of Hate. 
— It is Possible for Europe to Restore to Productive Employ- 
ments 3,000,000 of men, to place at the Disposal of her Educators 
$700,000,000, instead of $70,000,000 per annum, and to pay her 
National Debts in Fifty-four Years, simply by the Disbandment 
of her Armies and Navies.— The Armament of Europe Stands iu 
the Way of Universal Education and of Universal Industrial Pros- 
perity. — Standing Ai-mies the Last Analysis of Selfishness; they 
are Coeval with the Revival during the Middle Ages of the Greco- 
Roman Subjective Methods of Education. — They must go out 
when the New Education comes in 285 



XXIV COxXTENTS. 

CHAPTER XXV. 

EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM— HISTORIC. 

A3IERICA. 

An Old Civilization in a New Country. — Old Methods in a New Sys- 
tem of Schools. — Sordid Views of Education. — The highest Aim 
Money-getting. — Herbert Spencer on the English Schools. — Same 
Defects in the American Schools. — Maxims of Selfishness. — The 
Cultivation of Avarice. — Political Incongruities. — Negroes escap- 
ing from, Slavery called Fugitives from Justice. — The Results of 
Subjective Educational Processes. — Climatic Influences alone saved 
America from becoming a Slave Empire. — Illiteracy. — Abnormal 
Growth of Cities. — Failure of Justice. — Defects of Education shown 
in Reckless and Corrupt Legislation. — Waste of an Empire of Pub- 
lic Land. — Henry D. Lloyd's History of Congressional Land Grants. 
— The Growth and Power of Corporations. — The Origin of large 
Fortunes, Speculations. — Old Social Forces producing old Social 
Evils. — Still America is tlie Hope of the World. — The Right of 
Suffrage in the United States justifies the Sentiment of Patriotism. 
— Let Suffrage be made Intelligent and Virtuous, and all Social 
Evils will yield to it; and all the Wealth of the Country is subject 
to the Draft of the Ballot for Education. — The Hope of Social Re- 
form depends upon a complete Educational Revolution. .Page 301 

CHAPTER XXVI. 
THE MANUAL ELEMENT IN EDUCATION IN 1884. 

The Kindergarten and the Manual -training School one in Principle, 
— Russia solved the Problem of Tool Instruction by Laboratory 
Processes.— The Initiatory Step by M. Victor Delia- Vos, Director 
of tlie Imperial Technical School of Moscow in 1868.— Statement 
of Director Della-Vos as to the Origin, Progress, and Results of the 
New System of Training.— Its Introduction into all the Technical 
Schools of Russia.— Dr. John D. Runkle, President of the Massa- 
chusetts Institute of Technology, recommends the Russian System 
in 1876, and it is adopted. — Statement of Dr. Runkle as to how 
he was led to the adoption of the Russian System. — Dr. Woodward, 
of Washington University, St. Louis, Mo., establishes the second 
School in this Country.— His Historical Note in the Prospectus of 
1882-83.— First Class graduated 1883— Manual Training in the 
Agricultural Colleges— In Boston, in New Haven, in Baltimore, in 
San Francisco, and other places.— Manual Training at the Meeting 
of the National Educational Association, 1884.— Kindergarten and 



CONTENTS. XXV 

Manual-tniiuing Exhibits. — Prof, Felix Adler's School in New 
York City — the most Comprehensive School in tlie World. — The 
Chicago Manual-training School the first Independent Institution 
of the Kind — its Inception ; its Incorporation ; its Opening. Its 
Director, Dr. Belfield. — His Inaugural Address. — Manual Training 
in the Public Schools of Philadelphia. — Manual Training in twenty- 
four States.— Revolutionizing a Tex;is College. — Local Option Law 
in Massachusetts. — Department of Domestic Economy in the Iowa 
Agricultural College. — Manual Training in Tennessee, in the Uni- 
versity of Michigan, in the National Educational Association, in 
Ohio. — The Toledo School for both Sexes. — The Importance of the 
Education of Woman— The Slojd Schools of Europe Page 323 



CHAPTER XXVIL 

PROGRESS OF THE NEW EDUCATION— 1883-1899. 

Educational Revolution in 1883-4. — Urgent Demand for Reform. — 
Existing Schools denounced as Superficial, their Methods as 
Automatic, their System as a Mixture of Cram and Sinatter. — 
The Controversy between the School-master of the Old Regime 
and the Reformer. — The Leaders of the Movement, Col. Parker, 
Dr. MacAlister, and others — followers of Rousseau, Bacon, and 
Spencer. — "The End of Man is an Action, not a Thought." — The 
Conservative Teachers fall into Line. — The New Education becomes 
" an Aggressive Force pushing on to Victory. — The Physical Progress 
of Manual Training — its Quality not equal to its Extent. — The New 
System of Training confided to Teachers of the Old Regime. — 
Ideal Teachers hard to find. — Teachers willing to Learn should be 
Encouraged. — The effects of Manual Training long antedate its 
Introduction to the Schools. —Bacon's Definition of Education. — 
Stephenson and the Value of Hand-work. — Manual Training is the 
union of Thought and Action. — It is the antithesis of the Greek 
methods, which exalted Abstractions and debased Things. — The 
Rule of Comenius and the -Injunction of Rousseau — few Teachers 
comprehend them. — The Employment of the Hands in the Arts is 
more highly Educative than the acquisition of the rules of Reading 
and Arithmetic. — What the Locomotive has accomplished for Man. 
— Education must be equal, and Social and Political Equality will 
follow. — The foundation of the New Education is the Baconian 
Philosophy as stated by Macaulay. — Use and Service are the Twin- 
ministers of Human Progress. — Definitions of Genius. — Attention. 
— Sir Henry Maine. — Manual Training relates to all the Arts of Life. 
— Mind and Hand.— Newton and the Apple. — The Sense of Touch 
resides in tlie Hand. — Robert Seidel on Familiarity with Objects. — 
Material Progress the basis of Spiritual Growth.— Plato and the 



XX vi CONTENTS. 

Divine Dialogues. — Poverty, Society, and the Useful Arts. — 
Selfishness must give way to Altruism.— The Struggle of Life. — 
The Progress of tlie Arts and the final Regeneration of the Race. 
— The Arts that make Life sweet and beautiful. — The final Funda- 
mental Educational Ideal is Universality. — Comenius's definition 
of Schools— the Workshops of Humanity. — T])at one Man should 
die ignorant, who had capacity for Knowledge, is a Tragedy. — 
Mental and Manual Exercises to be rendered homogeneous in the 
School of the Future.— The hero of the Ideal School Page 370 

APPENDIX 387 

INDEX 427 



ILLUSTEATIONS. 



PAGE 

Portrait of the Author Frontispiece 

The Laboratory op Carpentry 33 

Course in the Laboratory of Carpentry 37 

The Wood-turning Laboratory . 31 

Course in the Wood-turning and Pattern Laboratory . 41 

The Founding Laboratory .49 

Course in the Founding Laboratory 53 

The Forging Laboratory 59 

Course in the Forging Laboratory . 67 

The Machine-tool Laboratory . 79 

The Chipping, Filing, and Fitting Laboratory .... 89 

Course in the Machine-tool Laboratory 95 

The Students with their Books 107 

M. Victor Della-Vos, the Founder of Manual Training 

in Russia 339 

Dr. John D. Runkle, the Founder of Manual Training 

IN THE United States ...... = = .,',.. 335 



POWER. 

' ' His tongue teas framed to music, 

And his hand was aimed with skill; 
His face was the mould of beauty, 
And his heart the throne of will." 

— Emerson. 



MIND AND HAND: 

MANUAL TRAINING THE CHIEF FACTOR IN EDUCATION. 



CHAPTER L 
THE IDEAL SCHOOL. 



Its Situation. — Its Tall Chimney. — The Whir of Machinery and 
Sound of the Sledge-hammer. — The School that is to dignify 
Labor. — The Realization of the Dream of Bacon, Housseau, Co- 
menius, Pestalozzi, and Proebel. — The School that fitly represents 
the Age of Steel. 

The Ideal School is an institution which develops and 
trains to usefulness the moral, physical, and intellectual 
powers of man. It is what Comenius called Humanity's 
.workshop, and in America it is becoming the natural 
center of the Public Scliool system. The building, well- 
designed for its occupancy, is large, airy, open to the light 
on every side, amply provided with all appliances requis- 
ite for instruction in the arts and sciences, and finished 
interiorly and exteriorly in the highest style of useful 
and beautiful architectural effects. The distinguishing 
characteristic of the Ideal School building is its chim- 
ney, which rises far above the roof, from whose tall stack 
a column of smoke issues, and the hum and whir of 
machinery is heard, and the heavy thud of the sledge- 
hammer resounding on the anvil, smites the ear. 

It is, then, a factory rather than a school ? 

No. It is a school ; the school of the future ; the 
school that is to dignify labor ; the school that is to 



2 MIND AND HAND. 

generate power ; the school where every sound contrib- 
utes to the harmony of development, wliere the brain 
informs the muscle, where thought directs every blow, 
where tlie mind, the eye, and the hand constitute an 
invincible triple alliance. This is the school that Locke 
dreamed of, that Bacon wished for, that Eousseau de- 
scribed, and that Comenius, Pestalozzi, and Froebel 
struggled in vain to establish. 

It is, then, science and the arts in apotheosis. For if 
it be, as claimed, the Ideal school, it is destined to lift 
the veil from the face of !N"ature, to reveal her most 
precious secrets, and to divert to man's use all her 
treasures. 

Yes ; it is to other schools what the diamond is to 
other precious stones — the last analysis of educational 
thought. It is the philosopher's stone in education ; the 
incarnated dream of the alchemist, which dissolved earth, 
air, and water into their original elements, and recom- 
bined them to compass man's immortality. Through it 
that which has hitherto been impossible is to become a 
potential reality. 

In this building which resembles a factory or machine- 
shop an educational revolution is to be wrought. Edu- 
cation is to be rescued from the domination of mediaeval 
ideas, relieved of the enervating influence of Grecian 
sestheticism, and confided to the scientific direction of 
the followers of Bacon, whose philosophy is common 
sense and its law, progress. The philosophy of Plato 
left in its wake a long line of abstract propositions, 
decayed civilizations, and ruined cities, while the philos- 
ophy of Bacon, in the language of Macaulay,^' has length- 
ened life; mitigated pain; extinguished diseases; 
increased the fertility of the soil ; given new securities 



• THE IDEAL SCHOOL. 3 

to tlie mariner; spanned great rivers and estuaries with 
bridges of form unknown to our fathers; guided the 
thunderbolt innocuously from heaven to earth; lighted 
up the night with the splendor of the day ; extended 
the range of the human vision ; multiplied the power of 
the human muscles; accelerated motion; annihilated 
distance; facilitated intercourse, cori'espondence, all 
friendly offices, all dispatch of business; enabled man 
to descend to the depths of the sea, to soar into the air, 
to penetrate securely into the noxious recesses of the 
earth, to traverse the land in cars which whirl along 
without horses, and the ocean in ships which run ten 
knots an hour against the wind." 

It is this beneficent work of Bacon that the Ideal 
school is to continue — the work of demonstrating to the 
world that the most useful thing is the most beautiful 
thing — discarding Plato, the apostle of idle speculation, 
and exalting Bacon, the minister of use. 

In laying the foundations of education in labor it is dig- 
nified and education is ennobled. In such a union there 
is honor and strength, and long life to our institutions. 
For the permanence of the civil compact in this country, 
as in other countries, depends less upon a wide diffusion 
of unassimilated and undigested intelligence than upon 
such a thorough, practical education of the masses in the 
arts and sciences as shall enable them to secure, and 
qualify them to store up, a fair share of the aggregate 
produce of labor. 

If this school shall appear like a hive of industry, let 
the reader not be deceived. Its main purpose, intellect- 
ual development, is never lost sightof for a moment. It 
is founded on labor,which, being the most sacred of human 
functions, is the most useful of educational methods. It 



4 MIND AND HAND. 

is a system, of object-teaching — teaching through things 
instead of through signs of things. It is the embodi- 
ment of Bacon's aphorism — "Education is the cultiva- 
tion of a just and legitimate familiarity betwixt the mind 
and things." The students draw pictures of things, and 
then fashion them into things at the forge, the bench, 
and the turning-lathe ; not mainly that they may enter 
machine-shops, and with greater facility make similar 
things, but that they may become stronger intellectually 
and morally ; that they may attain a wider range of 
mental vision, a more varied power of expression, and so 
be better able to solve the problems of life when they 
shall enter upon the stage of practical activity. 

It is a theory of this school that in the processes of ed- 
ucation the idea should never be isolated from the object 
it represents ;* (1) because the idea, being the reflex per- 
ception or shadow of the object, is less clearly defined than 
the object itself, and (2) because joining the object and 
the idea intensifies tlie impression. Separated from its 
object the idea is unreal, a phantasm. The object is the 
flesh, blood, bones, and nerves of the idea. Without its 
body the idea is as impotent as the jet of steam that rises 
from the surface of boiling water and loses itself in the air. 
But unite it to its object and it becomes the vital spark, 
the animating force, the Promethean fire. Thus steam 
converts the Corliss engine — a huge mass of lifeless iron 
— into a thing of grace, of beauty, and of resistless power. 
Suppose the teacher, for example, desires to convey to 
the mind of a child having no knowledge of form an 
impression of the shape of the earth; he says, "It is 
globular." The child's face expresses nothing because 
there is in its mind no conception of the object repre- 
sented by the word globular. The teacher says, " It is a 



THE IDEAL SCHOOL. 5 

sphere," with no better success. He adds, " A sphere is 
a body bounded by a surface, every point of which is 
equally distant from a point witliin called the centre." 
The child's face is still expressionless. The teacher takes 
a handful of moist clay and moulds it into the form of a 
sphere, and exhibiting it, says, " The earth is like this." 
The child claps its hands, utters a cry of delight, and 
exclaims, " It is round like a ball !" 

This is an illustration of the triumph of object-teach- 
ing, the method alike of the kindergarten and the man- 
ual training school. As the child is father of the man, 
so the kindergarten is father of the manual training 
school. The kindergarten comes first in the order of 
development, and leads logically to the manual training 
school. The same principle underlies both. In both it 
is sought to generate power by dealing with things in 
connection with ideas. Both have common methods of 
instruction, and they should be adapted to the whole 
period of school life, and applied to all schools. 

The Ideal school, most precisely representative of the 
present age — the age of science — is dedicated to a homo- 
geneous system of mental and manual training, to the 
generation of power, to the development of true man- 
hood. And above all, this school is destined to unite in 
indissoluble bonds science and art, and so to confer upon 
labor the highest and justest dignity — that of doing and 
responsibility. The reason of the degradation of labor 
was admirably stated by America's most distinguished 
educational reformer, the late Mr. Horace Mann, who said, 
"The labor of the world has been performed by ignorant 
men, by classes doomed to ignorance from sire to son ; by 
the bondmen and bondwomen of the Jews, by the helots 
of Sparta, by the captives who passed under the Roman 



6 MIND AND HAND. 

yoke, and by tlie villeins and serfs and slaves of more 
modern times." 

When it shall have been demonstrated that the high- 
est degree of education results from combining manual 
with intellectual training, the laborer will feel the pride 
of a genuine triumph ; for the consciousness that every 
thought-impelled blow educates him, and so raises him 
in the scale of manhood, will nerve his arm, and fire his 
brain with hope and courage. 

^ "And the attempt to convey scientific conceptions witliout the 
appeal to observation, which can alone give such conceptions firm- 
ness and reality, appears to me to be in direct antagonism to the 
fundamental principles of scientific education. — "Physiography," 
[Preface], p. vii. By T. H. Huxley, F.R.S. New York: D. Apple- 
ton & Co., 1878. 

This theory is the antithesis of that of Plato, namely; "that the sim- 
plest and purest way of examining things, is to pursue every partic 
ular by thought alone, without offering to support our meditation by 
seeing or backing our reasonings by any other corporal sense."— 
Plato's " Divine Dialogues," p. 180. London: S. Cornish & Co., 1839. 



THE MAJESTY OF TOOLS. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE MAJESTY OF TOOLS. 

Tools the Highest Text -books — How to Use them the Test of 
Scholarship— They are the Gauge of Civilization— Carlyle's Apos- 
trophe to them.— The Typical Hand-tools. — The Automata of the 
Machine-shop. — Through Tools Science and Art are United. — The 
Power of Tools— Their Educational Value.— Without Tools Man 
is I^othing ; with Tools he is All. — It is through the Arts alone 
that Education touches Human Life. 

Sacred to the majesty of tools might be appropriately 
inscribed over the entrance to this Ideal school ; for its 
highest text-books are tools, and how to use them most 
intelligently is the test of scholarship. To realize the 
potency of tools it is only necessary to contrast the two 
states of man— the one without tools, the other wnth 
tools. See him in the first state, naked, shivering with 
cold, now hiding away from tlie beasts in caves, and now, 
famished and despairing, gannt and hollow-eyed, creep- 
ing stealthily like a panther upon his prey. Then see 
him in the poetic, graphic apostrophe of Carlyle : — 
"Man is a tool-using animal. He can use tools, can 
devise tools ; with these the granite mountains melt 
into light dust before him ; he kneads iron as if it were 
soft paste ; seas are his smooth higliway, winds and fire his 
unwearying steeds. Nowhere do yon find him without 
tools; without tools he is nothing, with tools he is all ! " 

What a picture of the influence of tools upon civiliza- 
tion ! It is throuo^h the use of tools that man has 



8 MIND AND HAND. 

reached the place of absolute supremacy among animals. 
As he increases his stock of tools he recedes from the 
state of savagery. The great galf between the aboriginal 
savage and the civilized man is spanned by the seven 
hand-tools — the axe, the saw, the plane, the hammer, the 
square, the chisel, and the file. These are the universal 
tools of the arts, and the modern machine - shop is an 
aggregation of them rendered automatic and driven by 
steam. 

The ancients constructed automata which were ex- 
ceedingly ingenious. In the statues that could walk and 
talk, the Chinese puppets and the marionettes of the 
Greeks there was a hint of the modern automatic tools, 
which, driven by steam, fashion with equal accuracy the 
delicate parts of the watch and the huge segments of the 
marine engine. The ancients knew more of science than 
of art. They were familiar with the power of steam, 
but knew not how to apply it to the wants of man. 
They knew that steam would turn a spit, but they had 
not a sufficient knowledge of art to convert the power 
they had discovered into a monster of force, and train it 
to bear the burdens of commerce. They never thought 
to apply the jet of steam used to turn a spit to great 
automatic machines, and to fit into them saws and files, 
and needles and drills, and gimlets and planes, and com- 
pel them to do the work of thousands of men. But this 
is precisely what the modern mechanic has accom- 
plished. In making a slave of steam, science and art 
have combined to free mankind. 

We marvel at the dulness of the ancients as shown in 
their failure to utilize in the useful arts the discoveries 
of science. That they should have studied the stars over 
their heads to the neglect of the earth under their feet is 



THE MAJESTY OF TOOLS. 



incomprehensible to the modern mind. But will not fut- 
m-e generations marvel at ns? Is it not an astounding 
fact that, with a knowledge of the tremendous influence 
of tools upon the destiny of the human race so graphic- 
ally depicted by Carlyle, the nations have been so slow 
in incorporating tool-practice into educational methods? 
The distinguishing features of modern civilization sprang 
as definitively from cunningly devised and skilfully han- 
dled tools as any effect from its cause. And yet the 
world's statesmen have failed to discover the value of 
tool-practice as an educational agency. The face of the 
globe has been transformed by the union of art and 
science, but the world's statesmen have not discerned the 
importance of uniting them in the curriculum of the 
schools. If the ancients could see us as we see them, 
they would doubtless laugh at us as we laugh at them. 

We might take a lesson from the savage. He is taught 
to fight, to hunt, and to fish, and in these arts the brain, 
the hand, and the eye are trained simultaneously. He is 
first given object-lessons, as the pupil of the kindergarten 
is taught. Then the tomahawk, the spear, and the bow 
and arrow are placed in his hands, and he fights for his 
life, or fishes or hunts for his dinner. The young Indian 
is taught all that it is necessary for him to know, and he 
is educated, practically, in the savage's three workshops 
— ^the battle-field, the forest and plain, the sea and lake. 
Thus the young savage enters upon the duties of his life 
with an exact practical knowledge of them. He has not 
been taught a theory of fighting, he has used the weap- 
ons of warfare ; he has not studied the arts of fishing and 
hunting, he has handled the spear and the bow and ar- 
row, and their use is as familiar to him as the multiplica- 
tion table is to the boy in the public school. 



10 MIND AND HAND. 

We have more and better tools than the savage pos- 
sesses. With the aid of science and art we harness steam 
to our chariot and compel it to draw us whither we will. 
We steal fire from the clouds and make it serve us as 
a messenger. We imprison the air, and with it stop the 
flying railway train; with the aid of science and art we 
reduce the most subtile forces of nature to servitude. 
But we neither teach our youth how to master their 
elements nor how to use them. 

Tools represent the steps of human progress — in archi- 
tecture, from the mud hut to the modern mansion ; in 
agriculture, from the pointed stick used to tear tlie turf 
to a thousand and one ingenious instruments of husband- 
dry ; in ship-building, from the rudderless, sailless boat to 
the ocean steamer ; in fabrics, from the matted fleece of 
the shepherd to the varied products of countless looms ; 
in pottery, from the first rude Egyptian cup to the ex- 
quisite vase of the Sevres factory. And so of every art 
that contributes to the comfort and pleasure of man ; the 
development of each has been accomplished by tools in the 
hands of the laborer. » 

Since, then, man owes so much to labor, he has doubt- 
less educated the laborer and showered honors upon 
him (?). On the contrary, the labor of the world has been 
performed by the most ignorant classes, by bondmen, by 
helots and captives, by serfs and slaves. The laborer has 
been held in such contempt, and been so debased by ig- 
norance, that he has often violently protested against im- 
provements in the tools of the trades, and with vandal 
hands destroyed the mill, the factory, and the forge erect- 
ed to ameliorate his condition. At the top of the social 
scale the sage has studied the stars and invented systems 
of abstract philosophy ; at the bottom ignorance has dei- 



THE MAJESTY OF TOOLS. 



11 



fied itself and starved. This divorce of science from art 
has resulted in such incongruities as the Pyramids of 
Egypt and periodical famines; as the hanging gardens 
of Babylon and the horrors of Jewish captivity ; as the 
Greek Parthenon and dwellings without chimneys; as 
the statues of Phidias and Praxiteles, and royal banquets 
without knives, forks, or spoons ; as the Roman Forum 
and the Roman populace crying for bread and circuses ; 
as Socrates, Plato, Seneca and Aurelius, and Caligula, 
Claudius, Nero and Domitian. 

On the other hand the union of science with art tun- 
nels the mountain, bridges the river, dams the torrent, 
and converts the wilderness into a fruitful field. 

Science discovers and art appropriates and utilizes ; 
and as science is helpless without the aid of art, so art is 
dead without the help of tools. Tools then constitute 
the great civilizing agency of the world ; for civilization 
is the art of rendering life agreeable. Th'e savage may 
own a continent, but if he possesses only the savage's 
tools — the spear and the bow and arrow — he will be 
ill-fed, ill-housed, ill -clothed, and poorly protected both 
against cold and heat. He might be familiar with all 
the known sciences, but if he were ignorant of the arts 
his state, instead of being improved, would be rendered 
more deplorable ; for with the thoughts, emotions, sensi- 
bilities, and aspirations of a sage he would still be pow- 
erless to steal from heaven a single spark of fire with 
which to warm his miserable hut. 

In the light of this analysis Carlyle's rhapsody on tools 
becomes a prosaic fact, and his conclusion — that man with- 
out tools is nothing, with tools all — points the way to the 
discovery of the philosopher's stone in education. For 
if man without tools is nothing, to be unable to use tools 

2* 



12 MIND AND HAND. 

is to be destitute of power ; and if with tools he is all, 
to be able to use tools is to be all-powerful. And this 
power in the concrete, the power to do some useful thing 
for man — this is the last analysis of educational truth. 

There is no better definition of education than that of 
Pestalozzi — " the generation of power." But what kind 
of power? Not merely power to think abstractly, to 
speculate, to moralize, to philosophize, but power to act 
intelligently. And the power to act intelligently in- 
volves the exertion, in greater or less degree, of all the 
powers, both mental and physical. Education, then, is 
the development of all the powers of man to the culmi- 
nating point of action. What kind of action? Action 
in art. What is art? " The power of doing something 
not taught by nature or instinct ; power or skill in the 
use of knowledge; the practical application of the rules 
or principles of science." Again we have the last analy- 
sis of education — " skill in the use of knowledge ; the 
application of the rules or principles of science." And 
this is tool practice. 

It is unnecessary, in an educational view, to divide 
the arts by the employment of the terms " useful '' and 
"fine;" for the fine arts can only exist legitimately 
where the useful arts have paved the way. In a har- 
monious development the artist will enter on the heels 
of tlie artisan. Art is cosmopolitan. It is not less 
worthily represented by the carpenter with his square, 
saw, and plane, and the smith with his sledge, than by the 
sculptor with his mallet and chisel, and the painter with 
his easel and brush; botli classes contribute to the com- 
fort and pleasure of man ; for comfort is enhanced by 
pleasure, and pleasure is intensified by comfort. It fol- 
lows that the ultimate object of education is the attain- 



THE MAJESTY OF TOOLS. 13 

meot of skill in the arts. To this end the speculations 
and investigations of philosophy and tlie experiments of 
chemistry lead. At the door of the study of the philos- 
opher and of the laboratory of the chemist stands the 
artisan, listening for the newest hint that philosophy can 
impart, waiting for the result of the latest chemical analy- 
sis. In his hands these suggestions take form ; through 
his skilful manipulation the faint indications of science 
become real things, suited to the exigencies of human life. 
It is the most astounding fact of history that educa- 
tion has been confined to abstractions. The schools have 
taught history, mathematics, language and literature, and 
the sciences, to the utter .exclusion of the arts, notwith- 
standing the obvious fact that it is through the arts alone 
that other branches of learning touch human life. As 
Bacon has so aptly expressed it, " The real and legitimate 
goal of the sciences is the endowment of human life with 
new inventions and riches." In a word, public education 
stops at the exact point where it should begin to apply 
the theories it has imparted. At this point the school 
of mental and manual training combined — the Ideal 
School^ — begins ; not only books but tools are put into the 
hands of the pupil, with this injunction of Comenius ; 
" Let those things that have to be done be learned by 
doing them. 



14 MIND AND HAND, 



CHAPTER III. 

THE ENaiNE-KOOM. 

The Corliss Engine— A Thing of Grace and Power— The G-rowth 
of Two Thousand Years— From Hero to Watt — Its Duty as a 
School-master. — The Interdependence of the Ages. — The School 
in Epitome. 

Let us enter the Ideal School building and take a 
bird's-eye view of the visible processes of the new edu- 
cation. 

The first object that attracts attention is the engine. 
It is a " Corliss," fifty-two horse-power, and makes that 
peculiar kind of noise which conveys to the mind of the 
observer an impression of restrained power. When the 
student, upon entering the school, is show^n this beautiful 
machine he is told that it, like all other inventions, is a 
growth — the growth of at least two thousand years ; that 
the power of steam was known to the ancients — the 
Egyptians, Greeks, and Komans; that Hero, a philoso- 
pher of Alexandria, invented a crude steam-engine before 
the beginning of the Christian era, and that the engine 
before us, which throbs and trembles under the pressure 
of its battery of steel boilers in doing duty as a school- 
master, is the latest development of Hero's conception. 
The educational idea underlying this fact is the inter- 
dependence of the ages ; each generation is a link be- 
tween the past and the future. " To show," as Philarete 
Chasles says, " that man can only act efficiently by asso- 
ciation with others, it has been ordained that each in- 
ventor shall only interpret the first word of the problem 
he sets himself to solve, and that every great idea shall 



THE ENGINE-ROOM. 15 

be the resume of the past at the same time that it is the 
germ of the future." 

The first word of the solution of the steam-power 
problem came from Hero down the ages, through De- 
caus, Papin, Savory, Newcomen, Breighton, and Smea- 
ton, to Watt. To Watt is awarded the honor of the 
invention of the modern steam-engine ; but the first con- 
ception of his engine was derived from an atmospheric 
machine through the accident of it having been placed 
in his hands for repairs. Smeaton was the inventor of 
that atmospheric engine, and his mind was one of the 
links in the chain of intelligences extending back to 
Egypt, through whose united agency the steam-engine 
became a real thing of power in the cunning hands of 
James Watt, of whom the late Dr. Draper said, " He 
conferred on his native country more solid benefits than 
all the treaties she ever made and all the battles she ever 
won." This law governing great achievements is full of 
encouragement to the student of mechanics, for while 
the thought of compassing any great discovery or inven- 
tion may well appall even the boldest, the most humble 
may hope through studious industry to contribute some- 
thing to the sum of human knowledge. 

The engine-room of our school is neater than that of 
the ordinary machine-shop, but the furnace roars like 
any other, its open mouth shows a bank of glowing coals, 
and the " stoker," with grimy hands, wipes the sweat 
from his sooty brow. The w^hole school is here seen in 
epitome: the "stoker" typifies the student toiling at 
the forge, and in the polished engine, exhibiting both 
grace and power in its automatic action, we see the stu- 
dent's graduating project, a machine, the joint creation 
of brain, eye, and hand. 



16 MIND AND HAND. 



CHAPTER rV. 
THE DRAWING-EOOM. 

Twenty-four Boys bending over the Drawing-board. — Analysis and 

Synthesis in Drawing. — Geometric Drawing. — Pictorial Drawing, 
—The Principles of Design.— The Esthetic in Art.— The Funda- 
mentals — Object and Constructive Drawing. — Drawing for the 
Exercises in the Laboratories. — The Educational Value of Draw- 
ing — The Language of Drawing. — Every Student an expert 
Draughtsman at the end of the Course. 

Passing from the engine-room we enter the room as- 
signed to drawing,^ — the first step in art education— 
where twenty-four bojs are bending over the drawing- 
board, pencil in hand. Every school-day for three years 
these boys will spend an hour in this room. Each divi- 
sion of drawing — free-hand and mechanical — is thor- 
oughly taught. Every graduate of the institution will 
be an expert draughtsman. The room is very still, only 
the scratching sound of twenty-four pencils is heard. 
The instructor moves about among the students, with 
here and there a hint, a suggestion, a correction, or a 
word of commendation — " good." 

Drawing is the representation on paper of the facts, 
and the appearance to the eye of forms. The exercise 
proceeds by both analysis and synthesis. A cube is di- 
vided into all the geometric figures of which it is suscep- 
tible, and these figures are imitated with the pencil on 
paper. Then the figures are reunited, and the cube is 
similarly imitated. As the child in the kindergarten is 
taught several fundamental geometric facts through the 



THE DRAWING-ROOM. 



17 



use of variously subdivided cubes, so the student of 

drawing is taught by a similar process how to represent 

these fundamental facts on paper. For example (1), the 

student is taught to draw the following (sketches 1, 2, 

and 3) geometric forms 

of the square, oblong, 

and circle ; (2) he is 

taught (sketches 4, 5, 6, 

and 7) to represent the 

facts of the oblong block and cylinder; (3) these facts 

are expressed as follows (sketches 8 and 9) in working 




rr 




drawings. Sketches 8 and 9 are such drawings as would 
be placed in the hands of a mechanic as plans for the 
manufacture of the solids they repre- 
sent ; and the most elaborate working 
drawings for building and mechanical 
purposes are merely the complete de- 
velopment of this division of the art. 
Another division of drawing con- 
sists in the representation of solids 
or objects as they appear to the eye or pictorially. The 
oblong block and cylinder, for exam- 
ple, appear to the eye very differently 
from their facts represented in the 
working drawings (sketches 8 and 9), 
as thus — (sketches 10 and 11). 

The development of this division of drawing leads to 
general pictorial representation. 



18 MIND AND HAND. 

Finally the mastery of the art of drawing involves a 
study of the principles of design as applied to industrial 
articles with the purpose of enhancing their value, as de- 
signs for wall-paper, carpets, embroideries, tapestry, tex- 
tiles generally, and decorative work in wood. This is 
the aesthetic element in the art which appeals to and de- 
velops the student's taste. It is an important feature of 
drawing, not less on this account than from the fact that 
the designer's profession is a very lucrative one, but it is 
less important than object and constructive drawing, be- 
cause less fundamental. Besides, object and constructive 
work in drawing come first in the order of development, 
and it is an inexorable rule of the new education to fol- 
low implicitly the hints of nature. 

The basis of the art of drawing is geometry, and its 
a^ 5, G consists in a knowledge of certain geometrical 
lines, curves, and angles. This knowledge is gained 
from examples on the black-board which are reproduced 
on paper. But to relieve the student of this school 
from the tedium of reproducing, hundreds of times in 
succession, the same lines, angles, and curves, object-draw- 
ing is introduced very early in the course ; and to ren- 
der the exercise more attractive, as well as to impress it 
more firmly upon the mind, the objects drawn during the 
day are made features of the construction lesson in the 
carpenter's laboratory, the wood or iron turning labora- 
tory, or the laboratory of founding on the following day. 
At first the objects selected for this exercise are of a very 
simple character, as a piece of plain moulding — a piece of 
elaborate moulding ; parts of a drawing-board — an entire 
drawing-board ; parts of a table or desk — an entire table 
or desk ; parts of a draughtsman's stool — an entire stool ; 
parts of a chair — an entire chair. 



THE DKA WING-ROOM. 19 

As the student advances in the general course he ad- 
vances in object and constructive drawing, from simple 
to complex forms. He draws, for example, various parts 
of the steam-heating apparatus, and from these draughts 
makes w^orking draw^ings of patterns for moulding. These 
he works out in the Carpenter's Laboratory, and thence 
takes them to the moulding-room, where they are used 
in the lesson given in moulding for casting. This method 
of instruction leads to a critical analysis of the entire in- 
terior of the school building. Each article is resolved 
into the original elements of its construction, and each 
element or part is first represented on paper, then ex- 
panded into working drawings, and then wrought out in 
wood and ii'on. Finally the student reaches the engine, 
every part of which is made the subject of exhaustive 
study ; the facts of every part are represented on paper, 
working drawings of every part are made, and every part 
is reproduced in steel and iron in miniature, and, as a 
triumph of drawing, a representation on paper of the 
completed engme is produced. 

The value of drawing as an educational agency is sim- 
ply incalculable. It is the first step in manual training. 
It brings the eye and the mind into relations of the 
closest intimacy, and makes the hand the organ of both. 
It trains and develops the sense of form and proportion, 
renders the eye accurate in observation, and the hand 
cunning in execution. 

The students are intent upon their work. The eye is 
busy acting as interpreter between the mind and the 
hand. Having conveyed the impression of an object to 
the mind, under its direction it now photographs the 
object on paper, and the hand obeying the will traces it 
out in lines. Thus the power is gained of multiplying 



20 MIND AND HAND. 

forms of things with the pencil as words are multiplied 
by types. 

Drawing is a language — the language in which art re- 
cords the discoveries of science. It is not German, it is 
not French, it is not English — it is universal — common 
to all draughtsmen. The face of the student exhibits 
vivid flashes of intelligence as the picture reveals itself 
under his hand. Each line is a word, an angle completes 
the sentence; with a curve and a little delicate shading 
we have a paragraph. The picture begins to glow with 
thought. The student's face flushes, his heart beats quick 
and his hand trembles. But he restrains himself, and 
adds more lines, more angles and curves, more shading, 
and the picture is complete. It stands out in bold relief, 
and looks like a real thing. If the student knows the story 
of the brazen statue of Albertus Magnus he half expects 
his picture of a locomotive to move. He listens for the 
sound of the hissing steam, and a smile lights up his face 
as the illusion vanishes. Presently he will take his draw- 
ing to the shop, and at the bench, the lathe, the anvil, 
and the forge, reproduce it in iron and steel, and actually 
vitalize it with steam. 



THE CARPENTERS LABORATORY. 21 



CHAPTER V. 

THE CARPENTER'S LABORATORY. 

The Natural History of the Pine-tree — How it is Converted into 
Lumber, what it is Worth, and how it is Consumed. — Where the 
Students get Information. — Working Drawings of the Lesson, — 
Asking Questions. — The Instructor Executes the Lesson. — Instruc- 
tion in the Use and Care of Tools. — Twenty-four Boys Making 
Things— As Busy as Bees. — The Music of the Laboratory. — The 
Self-reliance of the Students. 

Passing from the Drawing-Room down a flight of 
stairs we enter the Carpenter's Laboratory. Here we find 
twenty-four boys seated before a black-board. At their 
left stands the instructor with a piece of white pine in his 
hand. The piece of pine is the subject of his lecture. 
He frequently breaks the thread of his remarks to ask 
questions, and he is as frequently interrupted by ques- 
tions from members of the class. The scene closely re- 
sembles an animated discussion, of which a desire to learn 
by asking questions is the chief characteristic. The dis- 
cussion is about pine-trees and pine lumber. A pale- 
faced, city-bred boy rises to describe the pine-tree. He 
describes a fir-tree, such as may be seen in well-kept ur- 
ban grounds and parks, and describes it in w^ell-chosen, 
almost poetic phrase. The instructor shakes his head, 
but with a genial smile, and recognizes a boy whose face 
is tanned brown, and who rises at the nod and stands 
rather awkwardly as he speaks. He has seen the pine 
in its native wilds, and he describes quite graphically 
its long, bare trunk and slender limbs. But he says 



?2 MIND AND HAND. 

nothing of its narrow, linear leaves, of a dark green color, 
nor of its woody cones, nor of the ^olian-harp-like sound 
of the wind in its branches. Why, the instructor wants 
to know, and he propounds a series of questions, the an- 
swers to which afford a brief sketch of the boy's history. 
His father is a dealer in pine logs, and once this boy 
went with him into the pineries of N'orthern Michigan 
in mid- winter, when the landscape was white with snow, 
and there saw the huge trees sway back and forth under 
the woodman's axe, saw them topple over, and heard the 
loud crash of their fall, saw them trimmed and sawed 
into mill-logs. He took no note of the woody cones, nor 
of the narrow leaves of the pine, nor did the sound of 
the wind in its branches make any impression upon his 
mind. He saw the pine as his father saw it, with the 
eyes of a lumberman. He learned just one thing, and 
learned it so well that he is able to tell the story of the 
pine-tree from the moment of its fall from the stump in 
the great forest to its arrival at the mill, and thence, cut 
into boards, planks, and timber, to the raft or schooner 
bound for Chicago. 

Then the different varieties of the pine-tree are enu- 
merated, and the uses to which their woods are severally 
adapted mentioned. The countries which chiefly pro- 
duce the pine-tree are named, and the climatic conditions 
most favorable to its growth briefly referred to. This 
discussion leads to the subject of commerce in pine lum- 
ber — quantity consumed, demand and supply, etc; and 
this in turn brings a boy to his feet with the statement 
that at the present rate of consumption the supply of 
pine in North America will be exhausted in fifty years. 
In answer to a question the boy says he read the state- 
ment in a newspaper. This leads to further inquiry as 



T.HE CARPENTER S LABORATORY. 35 

to the sources of information sought by the members of 
the class, whereupon it appears that fifteen boys have 
consulted the title " pine " in some encyclopedia with a 
view to the present lesson, and that eighteen boys have 
read the market report under the title " lumber " in a 
daily journal, in order to learn the value of white-pine 
boards. The value being stated by half a dozen boys, 
each member of the class computes the cost of the piece 
of pine in the hands of the teacher. 

Ten minutes having been consumed in the inquiry into 
the nature and value of the wood in which the lesson of 
the day is to be wrought, the instructor makes working 
drawings of the lesson on the black-board. It may con- 
sist of a plain joint, a mitre joint, a dove -tail joint, a 
tenon and mortise, or a frame involving all these, and 
more manipulations. In the few minutes devoted to this 
exercise any question that occurs to the mind of the stu- 
dent may be asked, and no impatience is manifested or 
felt if the questions are numerous and reiterated. But 
as a matter-of-fact very few questions are asked during 
the black-board exercise, because each student, having 
gone over every step of it in his drawing-class the day 
previous, is perfectly familiar with the subject. 

The instructor now quits the black-board for the bench, 
where, in the presence of the whole class, he executes the 
difficult parts of the lesson, still propounding and answer- 
ing questions. If a new tool is brought into requisition, 
instruction is given in its care and use. Now the boys 
repair to their benches, throw off their coats, and seize 
their tools. In a moment the silence and repose of the 
recitation-room are exchanged for the noise and activity 
of the laboratory. A quarter of an hour ago we left 
twenty-four boys, with bowed heads, making drawings of 



26 MIND AND HAND, 

things ; for a quarter of an hour we have listened to a 
peculiar kind of recitation involving much practical knowl- 
edge on the subject of the pine-tree and its product, lum- 
ber ; now we stand in the presence of twentj-four boys, in 
twenty-four different attitudes of labor, making things. 
They are literally as busy as bees, using the square, the 
saw, the plane, and the chisel; they are, as the journey- 
man carpenter would say, " getting out stuff for a job." 
The coarse, buzzing sound of the cross-cut saw resounds 
loudly through the room ; above this bass note the sharp 
tenor tone of the rip-saw is heard, and the rasping sound 
of half a dozen planes throwing off a series of curling 
pine ribbons comes in as a rude refrain. The faces of the 
boys are ruddy with the glow of exercise ; the pale-faced 
boy who mistook a fir-tree for a pine will have his revenge 
on the angular boy from the Michigan pinery, for he is 
doing a finer piece of work than the other. 

In the midst of the harmonious confusion caused by the 
use of saws, planes, mallets, and chisels, the instructor raps 
on his desk, and silence is restored ; three or four boys 
stand in a group about the instructor's desk, the others 
pause and wipe the perspiration from their brows. It is 
a picture full of interest — twenty-four boys, with flushed, 
eager faces, lifting their eyes simultaneously to the face of 
the instructor, w^aiting for the hint which is to come, and 
which is sure in tliese now active minds to result in a 
prompt solution of the main problem of the day's lesson. 
A similar question from several boys shows the instruct- 
or that the lesson has not been made clear; hence the 
general explanation which follows the call to order. So 
the work goes on, with now and then an interruption. 
There is a student trying to fit a tenon into its mortise ; 
he is nervous and impatient ; the instructor observes him, 



THE carpenter's LABORATORY. 



29 



foresees a catastrophe, and moves towards his bench. But 
it is too late ! The tenon being forced the mortise splits, 
and the discomforted student makes a wry face. The in- 
structor approaches with a word of good cheer, but with 
the warning aphorism that "haste makes waste." The 
student's face flushes, and he chronicles his failure as 
Huntsman, the inventor of cast-steel, did his, bj burying 
the wreck under a pile of shavings, and commencing, as 
the lawyers say, de novo. Thus the lesson proceeds " by 
the usual laboratory methods employed in teaching the 
sciences;" the class learns the thing to be done by do- 
ing it. The students are at their best, because the lesson 
to be learned compels a close union between the three 
great powers of man — observation, reflection, and action. 
No student seeks aid from another, because such a course 
would be impossible without the knowledge of the whole 
class. A feeling of self-reliance is thus developed, the 
disposition to shirk repressed, and a sense of sturdy inde- 
pendence encouraged and promoted. 



so MIND AND HAND. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE WOOD-TURNING LABORATORY. 

A Radical Change — From the Square to the Circle; from Angles 
to Spherical, Cylindrical, and Eccentric Forms.— The Rhythm of 
Mechanics.— The Potter's Wheel of the Ancients and the Turning- 
lathe— The Speculation of Holtzapffels on its Origin.— The Greeks 
as Turners.— The Turners of the Middle Ages.— George III. at the 
Lathe.— Maudslay's Slide-rest, and the Revolution it wrought.— 
The Natural History of Black -walnut.— The Practical Value of 
Imagination— Disraeli's Tribute to it ; Sir Robert Peel's Want of 
it.— The Laboratory animated by Steam.— The Boys at the Lathes 
— Their Manly Bearing. — The Lesson. 

When the twenty-four boys of the Carpenter's Labora- 
tory have become expert in the use of the tools employed 
in carpentry they will be introduced to the Wood-turning 
Laboratory. The change is radical — from the square to 
the circle, from the prose to the poetry of mechanical 
manipulation. Carpentry is distinguished for its cor- 
ners and angles, turnery for its spherical, cylindrical, and 
eccentric forms. In these forms Nature abounds and 
delights, and it is in these forms that the rhythm of 
mechanics exists. It is by the Turners that the arts are 
supplied with a thousand and one things of use and 
beauty. The machines, great and small, from the loco- 
motive to the stocking-knitter — without which the work 
of the modern world could not be done — these wonder- 
ful contrivances, seemingly more cunning than the hand 
of man, owe their very existence to the turning-lathe. 

The skilled instructor in this department of the school 



THE WOOD-TUKNING LABORATORY. 33 

loves to dwell upon tlie history of tiirning. Its origin is 
enveloped in the obscurity of early Egyptian traditions. 
It is the subject of one of the oldest myths, which runs 
thus : " Num, the directing spirit of the universe, and 
oldest of created beings, first exercised the potter's art, 
moulding the human race on his wheel. Having made 
the heavens and the earth, and the air, and the sun and 
moon, he modelled man out of the dark IS'ilotic clay, and 
into his nostrils breathed the breath of life." 

The Potter's "Wheel of the ancients contained the germ 
of the turning-lathe found in every modern machine-shop, 
whether for the manipulation of wood or iron. Holtz- 
apffels has an ingenious speculation as to the origin of 
the invention of the lathe. In his elaborate work on 
" Turning and Mechanical Manipulation " he says, 

" It would appear probable that the origin of the lathe 
may be found in the revolution given to tools for pierc- 
ing objects for ornament or use. At first it may be sup- 
posed that a spine or thorn from a tree, a splinter of 
bone or a tooth, was alone used and pressed into the 
work as we should use a brad-awl. The ^^I'ocess would 
naturally be slow and unsuitable to hard materials, and 
this probably suggested to the primitive mechanic the 
idea of attaching a splinter of bone or flint to the end of 
a short piece of stick, rubbing which between the palms 
of his hands would give a rotary motion to the tool." 

Of the steps of progress in invention, from the rude 
turning-tools of the ancients down to the beginning of 
the present century, when Maudslay's improvement made 
the lathe the king of the machine-shop, little is known. 
By the Greeks the invention of turning was ascribed to 
Daedalus. Phidias, who produced the two great master- 
pieces of G-reek art, Athene and Jupiter Olympius, was 

3 



84 MIND AND HAND. 

familiar with the then existing system of wood-turning. 
In cutting figures on signets and gems in such stones as 
agate, carneUan, chalcedony, and amethyst, the Greek 
artificers used the wheel and the style. In the abundant 
ornamentation of Roman dwellings — their elaborately 
carved chairs, tables, bedsteads, sofas, and stools — there 
is ample evidence of a knowledge of the art of turning 
in wood. Improvements were made in turning - tools, 
and fine ornamental work was done by the artisans of 
the Middle Ages, to which the cathedrals and palaces 
of the time bear witness. Later, during the sixteenth 
and seventeenth centuries, turning became a fashiona- 
ble amusement among the French nobility and gentry. 
Louis XYI. was an expert locksmith, and spent much 
of his royal time in that pursuit. The fashion extended 
to England. George III. is said to have been an expert 
wood-turner, to have been " learned in wheels and tread- 
les, chucks and chisels ;" and as a matter of course a pur- 
suit indulged by kings was followed by many nobles. 
There is, however, no evidence that those distinguished 
amateurs made any improvements in the tools they used ; 
inventions and discoveries in this as in all departments 
of art came from the other end of the social scale. 
When the Spaniards sacked Antwerp in 1585 the Flem- 
ish silk-weavers fled to England and set u^p their looms 
there ; and a century latei', upon the revocation of the 
Edict of Kantes, the silk industry of England received a 
new accession of refugee artisans consisting of persecuted 
Protestants. Doubtless with the Flemish weavers there 
crossed the British Channel representatives of all the 
useful arts, including that of turning; for in another 
hundred years England took the front raidi among na- 
tions in nearly all industrial pursuits. 



THE WOOD-TURNING LABORATORY. 35 

Among the great inventions and discoveries wliich dis- 
tinguished tlie last quarter of tlie eighteenth century, 
Maudslay's slide-rest attachment to the lathe v^^as one of 
the greatest, if not the greatest. Without it Watt's in- 
vention would have been of little more real service to 
mankind than the French automata of the first quarter of 
the same century — the mechanical peacock of Degennes, 
Yaucauson's duck, or Maillardet's conjurer. Mr. Samuel 
Smiles, in his admirable book on " Iron-workers and Tool- 
makers," declares that this passion for automata, which 
gave rise to many highly ingenious devices, "had the 
effect of introducing among the higher order of artists 
habits of nice and accurate workmanship in executing 
delicate pieces of machinery." And he adds, "The same 
combination of mechanical powers which made the steel 
spider crawl, the duck quack, or waved the tiny rod of 
the magician, contributed in future years to purposes of 
higher import — the wheels and pinions, which in these 
automata almost eluded the human senses by their mi- 
nuteness, reappearing in modern times in the stupendous 
mechanism of our self-acting lathes, spinning-mules, and 
steam-engines." 

That there was a logical connection between the two 
eras of mechanical contrivance — that of the ingenious 
automata and that of the useful modern machines — is 
extremely probable. That the refugee artisans from 
Antwerp and from France had a stimulating effect upon 
English invention and discovery there can be little doubt; 
and that the French automata, which were much written 
about, and exhibited as a triumph of mechanical genius, 
became known to and exercised an influence upon the 
minds of intelligent mechanics is equally probable. We 
are therefore surprised to lind Mr. Smiles arriving at a 



36 MIND AND HAND. 

conclusion in such direct conflict with his general views 
of the gradual growth of inventions, namely, "that 
Maudslay's invention was entirely independent of all 
that had gone before, and that he contrived it for the 
special purpose of overcoming the difficulties which he 
himself experienced in turning out duplicate parts in 
large numbers." 

But however this may be, Mr. Maudslay's invention 
revolutionized the workshop. Before its introduction 
the tool of the artisan was guided solely by muscular 
strength and tlie dexterity of the hand ; the smallest varia- 
tion in the pressure applied rendered the work imperfect. 
The slide-rest acting automatically changed all that. With 
it thousands of duplicates of the most ponderous, as well 
as the most minute pieces of machinery, are executed 
with the utmost precision. Without it the steam-engine, 
whether locomotive or stationary, would have been hard- 
ly more than a dream of genius ; for the monster that is 
to be fed with steam can be properly constructed only by 
automatic steam-driven tools; or, as another has expressed 
it, " Steam-engines were never properly made until they 
made ^themselves." 

Ten minutes are thus agreeably and profitably occu- 
pied by the instructor in a review of the history of a 
single invention, and its relations to the whole field of 
mechanical work. 

Another branch of the lesson consists of an inquiry into 
the natural history, qualities, value, and common uses of 
the wood which is to be the material of the day's ma- 
nipulation — black-walnut. Holding a piece of the pur- 
plish brown wood high in his hand the instructor dis- 
charges, as it were, a volley of questions at the class, 
"What is it called?" "Where is it found?" "How 



THE WOOD-TURNING LABORATORY. 87 

large does the tree grow ?" " For what is the wood 
chiefly used ?" Up go a dozen hands. The owner of one 
of the hands is recognized, and he rises to tell all about 
it, but is only allowed to say " black- walnut.^' The next 
speaker is permitted to say that "the black -walnut is 
found all over North America ;" the next that it is more 
abundant west of the Alleghanies, and most abundant in 
the valley of the Mississippi; the next that in a forest 
it has a limbless trunk from thirty to fifty feet high, 
but in the " open " branches near the ground ; the next 
that it is extensively used in house -finishing, in furni- 
ture, for all kinds of cabinet-work, and especially for 
gun stocks. 

Further inquiry elicits the information that the black- 
walnut is a quick-growing, large tree; that its wood is 
hard, fine-grained, durable, and susce23tible of a high pol- 
ish, and that through use and exposure it turns dark, and 
with great age becomes almost black. One student de- 
scribes the leaves, another the fruit or nuts, and states 
that they are used in dyeing; a third states that the 
black-walnut is a great favorite for planting in the tree- 
less tracts of the West, on account of its rapid growth 
and the value of its timber. When the subject appears 
to be nearly exhausted, a boy at the farther end of one of 
the forms rises timidly and tells the story of the late Mr. 
W. C. Bryant's great black-walnut-tree at Roslyn, Long 
Island. He concludes, excitedly, " It is one hundred and 
seventy years old and twenty-five feet in circumference."^ 

* "At Ellerslie, the birthplace of Wallace, exists an oak which 
is celebrated as having been a remarkable object in his time, and 
which can scarcely, therefore, be less than seven hundred years old. 
Near Staines there is a yew-tree older than Magna Charta (1215), and 
the yews at Fountains Abbey, in Yorkshire, are probably more than 



38 MIND AND HAND. 

The timid boy dwells upon his story of the " big " tree 
with evident fondness, and his eyes dilate with satisfac- 
tion as he resumes his seat. The circumstance of the 
great age no less than the enormous size of the tree has 
captivated his imagination. The discriminating instruct- 
or will not fail to note such incidents of the lesson. It 
is through them that the special aptitudes of students are 
disclosed. The instructor will always bear prominently 
in mind that the purpose of the school is not to make 
mechanics but men. 'Nor will he forget, as Buckle re- 
marked, that Shakespeare preceded Newton. Buckle pays 
a glowing tribute to the usefulness of the imagination. 
He says, " Shakespeare and the poets sowed the seed which 
J^ewton and the philosophers reaped. . . . They drew 
attention to nature, and thus became the real founders of 
all natural science. They did even more than this. They 
first impregnated the mind of England with bold and 
lofty conceptions. They taught the men of their gener- 
ation to crave after the unseen." 

Disraeli, in his matchless biography of Lord George 
Bentinck, in summing up the character of a great Eng- 
lish statesman is equally emphatic in praise of the imagi- 
nation as a practical quality. He says, 

" Thus gifted and thus accomplished, Sir Robert Peel 
had a great deficiency — he was without imagination. 
Wanting imagination, he wanted prescience. 'No one 
was more sagacious when dealing with the circumstances 
before him ; no one penetrated the present with more 
acuteness and accuracy. His judgment was faultless, 

twelve hundred years old. Eight olive-trees still exist in the Garden 
of Olives at Jerusalem which are known to be at least eight hundred 
years old."— "Vegetable Physiology." By William B. Carpenter, 
k. D. , F„ R. S. , F. G. S. London : Bell and Daldy. 1865. p. 78. 



THE WOOD-TURNING LABORATORY. 39 

provided he had not to deal with the future. Thus it 
happened through his long career, that while he always 
was looked upon as the most prudent and safest of lead- 
ers, he ever, after a protracted display of admirable tac- 
tics, concluded his campaigns by surrendering at discre- 
tion. He was so adroit that he could prolong resistance 
even beyond its term, but so little foreseeing that often 
in the very triumph of his manoeuvres he found himself 
in an untenable position." 

The timid boy has imagination ; if he has application 
and the logical faculty he may become an inventor, or he 
may become an artist — an engraver or a designer of works 
of art — or he may become a man of letters. To the man 
of vivid imagination and industry all avenues are open ; 
Disraeli's wonderful career offers a striking illustration 
of the truth of this proposition. The true purpose of 
education is the harmonious development of the whole 
being, and the purpose of this turning laboratory is to edu- 
cate these twenty-four boys, not to make turners of them. 

The laboratory is a labyrinth of belts, large and small, 
of wheels, big and little, of pulleys and lathes. A stu- 
dent, at a word from the instructor, moves a lever a few 
inches, and the breath of life is breathed into the compli- 
cated mass of machinery. The throbbing heart of the 
engine far away sends the currents of its power along 
shafting and pulleys. The dull, monotonous whir of 
steam-driven machinery salutes the ear, and the twenty- 
four students take their places at the lathes. They are 
from fourteen to seventeen years of age, and range in 
height from undersize to " full-grown." They look like 
little men. Their faces are grave, showing a sense of re- 
sponsibility. They are to handle edge-tools on wood rapid- 
ly revolved by the power of steam. There is peril in an 



40 MIND AND HAND, 

nncautious step, and death lurks in the shafting. Of these 
dangers they have been repeatedly warned ; and there is 
in their bearing that manifestation of warj coohiess which 
we call "nerve," and which in an emergency develops 
into a lofty heroism capable of sublime self-sacrifice. 

This is the very essence of education, its informing spir- 
it. The student no longer thinks merely of becoming an 
expert turner ; he thinks of becoming a man ! All the 
powers of his mind are roused to vigorous action ; 
imagination illumes the path, and reason, following 
with firm but cautious step, drives straight to the mark. 
Eapid development results from the combination of prac- 
tice with theory — rapid because orderly, or natural. The 
knowledge acquired is at once assimilated, and becomes 
a mental resource, subject to draft like a bank account. 
But unlike a bank account it increases in the ratio of the 
frequency with which drafts are made upon it, and the 
result is the student leaves school at seventeen years of 
age with the reasoning experience of an ordinarily edu- 
cated man of forty. 

The lesson has been announced by the instructor, its 
chief points stated and analyzed, its place in the scale (so 
to speak) of the art of turnery defined, its educational 
value to the mind, the hand, and the eye shown, and the 
points of difficulty involved so emphasized as to lead to 
painstaking care in the execution of crucial parts. The 
new tool required by the lesson is handled in presence of 
the waiting class by the instructor ; the time of its inven- 
tion stated ; the name of its inventor given ; the method 
of its manufacture described ; and how to sharpen, take 
care of, and use it explained with such minuteness of de- 
tail as to insure the making of a permanent impression 
upon the minds of students. 



THE WOOD-TURNING LABORATORY. 43 

The wood-turner's case contains more than a hundred 
tools, perhaps a hundred and fifty, but not more than a 
score of them are fundamental ; the others are subsidiary, 
and require very little if any explanation. 

The lesson may be one in simple turning, as a table-leg, 
the round of a chair, or parts of a section of a miniature 
garden-fence ; or it may be a set of pulleys, or patterns 
for various forms of pipe. The pieces of wood to be 
wrought or manipulated lie at the feet of the student, 
and the working drawing (drawm by the student himself) 
lies on the bench before him. The piece of w^ood to be 
turned first is adjusted, the student touches a lever over 
his head which sets the lathe in motion, takes the required 
tool in hand, and the work begins. Guided by the auto- 
matic slide-rest, the sharp point of the tool chips away 
the revolving wood until it assumes the form of the 
drawing lying under the eye of the operator. Thus the 
lesson proceeds to the end of the prescribed period — two 
hours. The master watches every step of its progress. 
If a student is puzzled he receives prompt assistance, so 
that no time may be lost. Indeed the relations between 
instructor and students are such, or ought to be such, that 
the question is asked before the puzzled mind falls into a 
rut of profitless speculation through revolving in a circle. 
But if the true sequential method of study is followed 
the student rarely fails, from the vantage ground of a 
step securely taken, to comprehend the nature of the 
next step in the regular order of succession. This is the 
Russian system, and it is the method of the wood-turnery 
as well as of every depai'tment of the Manual Training 
School. Hence a certain tool having been mastered, 
the next tool in the regular order of succession is more 
easily understood, because (1) each tool contains a hint of 



44 MIND AND HAND. 

the nature of its successor, and (2) each addition to the 
student's stock of knowledge confers an increased capa- 
bility of comprehension. 

When the lesson is concluded the whir of the machin- 
ery ceases, and a great silence falls upon the class as the 
students assemble about the instructor, each presenting 
his piece of work. This is the moment of friendly criti- 
cism. The instructor handles each specimen, comments 
upon the character of the workmanship, points out its 
defects, and calls for criticisms from the class. These 
are freely given. There is an animated discussion, involv- 
ing explanations on the part of the instructor of the 
various causes of defects, and suggestions as to suitable 
methods of amendment. Then the pieces of work are 
marked according to the various degrees of excellence 
they exhibit, and the class is dismissed. 



THE FOUNDING LABORATORY. 45 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE FOUNDING LABORATORY. 

The Iron Age. — Iron the King of Metals. — Locke's Apothegm. — The 
Moulder's Art is Fundamental.— History of Founding. — Remains 
of Bronze Castings in Egypt, Greece, and Assyria. — Layard's Dis- 
coveries. — The Greek Sculptors, —The Colossal Statue of Apollo 
at Rhodes. — The Great Bells of History. — Moulding and Casting 
a Pulley. — Description of the Process, Step by Step. — The Furnace 
Fire.— Pouring the Hot Metal into the Moulds. — A Pen Picture of 
the Laboratory. — Thus were the Hundred Gates of Babylon cast.— 
Neglect of the Useful Arts by Herodotus. — How Slavery has de- 
graded Labor. — How Manual Training is to dignify it. 

As we enter the Founding Laboratory we recall Locke's 
apothegm : " He who first made known the use of that 
contemptible mineral [iron] may be truly styled the fa- 
ther of arts and the author of plenty." We reflect, too, 
that the mineral that has given its name to an age of the 
world — our age — is worthy of careful study. 

The Founding Laboratory, like all the laboratories of 
the school, is designed for twenty-four students. There 
are twenty-four moulding-benches, combined with troughs 
for sand, and a cupola furnace where from five hundred 
to one thousand pounds of iron may be melted. 

The students we lately parted from in the Wood-turn- 
ing Laboratory are here. Their training has been confined 
to manipulations in wood ; they are now to be made ac- 
quainted with iron — iron in considerable masses. ' They 
should know something, in outline, of the history of the 
king of metals in the Founding Laboratory. The instruct- 
or speaks familiarly to them, somewhat as follows : 



46 MIND AND HAND. 

The art of the founder is fundamental in its nature. 
The arts of founding and forging are, indeed, the essen- 
tial preliminary steps which lead to the finer manipula- 
tions entering into all metal constructions. Whether 
forging preceded founding or founding forging is imma- 
terial ; both arts are as old as recorded history — much 
older indeed. Moulding, which is the first step in the 
founder's art, should be among the oldest of human dis- 
coveries, since man had only to take in his hand a lump 
of moist clay to receive ocular evidence of his power to 
give it any desired form. 

Moulding for casting is closely allied to the potter's 
art. The potter selects a clay suitable for the vessel he 
desires to mould, and the founder prepares a composition 
of sand and loam of the proper consistency to serve as a 
matrix for the vessel he desires to cast. 

The art of founding was doubtless first applied to 
bronze. The ruins of Egypt and Greece abound in the 
remains of bronze castings, an analysis of which reveals 
about the same relative proportions of tin and copper 
in use now for the best qualities of statuary bronze. The 
bronze castings of the Assyrians show a high degree of 
art. Many specimens of this 'B.ne work of the Assyrian 
founder have been rescued from the ruins of long-buried 
Nineveh — buried so long that Xenophon and his ten 
thousand Greeks marched over its site more than two 
thousand years ago without making any sign of a knowl- 
edge of its existence, and Alexander fought a great bat- 
tle in its neighborhood in apparent ignorance of the fact 
that he trod on classic ground. But there, delving be- 
neath the rubbish and decayed vegetation of four thou- 
sand years or more, Layard found great treasures of art 
in the palaces of Sennacherib and other Assyrian mon- 



THE FOUNDING LABORATOKY. 47 

archs — vases, jars, bronzes, glass-bottles, carved ivory and 
mother-of-pearl ornaments, engraved gems, bells, dishes, 
and ear-rings of exquisite workmanship, besides arms and 
a variety of tools of the practical arts. 

In Greece, in the time of Praxiteles, bronze was 
moulded into forms of rare beauty and grandeur. The 
colossal statue of Apollo at Khodes affords an example 
of the magnitude of the Greek castings. It was cast in 
several parts, and was over one hundred feet high. 
About fifty years after its erection it was destroyed by 
an earthquake. Its fragments lay on the ground where 
it fell, nearly a thousand years ; but when the Saracens 
gathered them together and sold them, there was a suffi- 
cient quantity to load a caravan consisting of nine hun- 
dred camels. One of the finest existing specimens of 
ancient bronze casting is that of a statue of Mercury dis- 
covered at Herciilaneum, and now to be seen in the mu- 
seum at I^aples. 

During the era of church bells the founder exercised 
his art in .casting bells of huge dimensions. Early in the 
fifteenth century a bell weighing about fifty tons was 
cast at Pekin, China. This bell still exists, is fourteen 
and a half feet in height and thirteen feet in diameter. 
But the greatest bell-founding feat was, however, that of 
1Y33, in casting the bell of Moscow. This bell is nineteen 
feet three inches in height and sixty feet nine inches in 
circumference, and weighs M3,772 pounds. The value of 
the metal entering into its construction is estimated at 
$300,000. It long lay in a pit in the midst of the Krem- 
lin, but Czar Nicholas caused it to be raised, mounted 
upon a granite pedestal, and converted into a chapel. 
The methods of casting employed by the founder of 
this king of bells are not known. The bell has outlived 



48 MIND AND HAND. 

the Works where it was cast. The melting and handling 
of two hundred and twenty tons of bronze metal certain- 
ly required appointments, mechanical and otherwise, of 
the most stupendous character ; and the existence of such 
Works presupposes an intimate acquaintance with the 
most minute details of the founder's art, since the natu- 
ral order of development is from the less to the greater. 
That is to say, the founder who could manipulate scores 
of tons of metal in a single great casting could doubtless 
manipulate a few pounds of metal ; or, the founder who 
could cast a bell weighing two hundred and twenty tons, 
could cast pots and kettles and hundreds of other little 
useful things. What we hope to do in this school Found- 
ing Laboratory is to gain a correct conception of great 
things by making ourselves thoroughly familiar with 
many forms of little things in moulding and casting. 

The lesson of the day is the moulding and casting of a 
plain pulley. In the Pattern Laboratory each student has 
already executed a pattern of the pulley to be cast, and 
the pattern lies before him on his moulding-bench, l^ow 
the instructor, at the most conspicuous bench in the 
room, proceeds to execute the first part of the lesson, 
which consists of moulding. Taking from the trough a 
handful of sand, he explains that it is only by the use of 
sand possessing certain properties, as a degree of moist- 
ure, but not enough to vaporize when the metal is poured 
in, and a small admixture of clay, but not enough to 
make of the compound a loam, that the mould can be 
saved from ruin through vaj)orization, and, at the same 
time, given the essential quality of adhesiveness and plas- 
ticity. In tlie course of tliis explanation he remarks 
that the sand used in some parts of the mould is mixed 
with pulverized bituminous coal, coke, or plumbago, in 



THE FOUNDING LABORATORY. 51 

order to give a smoother surface. Now he takes the 
"flask" — a wooden apparatus containing the sand in 
which the mould is made — and explains its construction 
and use. From this point — the sifting of facing sand on 
tlie turn-over board, to the final one of replacing the cope 
and securing it with keys or clamps — every step of the 
process is carefully gone through with and explained. 

Meantime, before the moulding lesson has proceeded 
far, a fire is kindled in the furnace and it is " charged ;" 
that is to say, filled with alternate layers of coal and pig- 
iron, with occasional fluxes of limestone. During the 
process of charging the furnace the instructor explains 
the principle of its construction, and shows how it oper- 
ates. At every subsequent rest in moulding the students 
surround the furnace to witness the progress of the fire, 
the position of the layers of coal, and the state of com- 
bustion. They pass the furnace in procession, and each 
peeps in through the isinglass windows upon the glow- 
ing fire, asks a question, or a dozen questions, perhaps, 
and gives place to the next student in line. In the in- 
tervals of these visits to the furnace the work of mak- 
ing twenty -four moulds goes on under the eye of the 
instructor, the students explaining each step in advance. 
He is omnipresent, answering a question here, prevent- 
ing a fatal mistake there, cheering, inspiring, and guiding 
the whole class, but never insisting upon a slavish ad- 
herence to strict identity in processes. And it is to be 
noted that there is in moulding more latitude for inde- 
pendence than in almost any other mechanical manipu- 
lation. Certain essentials there are, of course, but these 
being secured, the student may exercise his ingenuity in 
the execution of many minor details. That there is con- 
siderable individuality in the class may be seen by obser- 



52 MIND AND HAND. 

vation of the different methods employed by the several 
young moulders to compass various details of the same 
general process. 

The moulds are nearly completed. The instructor 
assists a student who is found to be a little behind in his 
work, and interposes a warning against haste at the criti- 
cal moment. Within a period of ten minutes the twenty- 
four patterns are " tapped," loosened, and lifted from 
their beds, imperfections are carefully repaired with the 
trowel, or some other tool, channels to the pouring holes 
are cut in the surfaces, the pieces remaining in the copes 
are removed, the particles of loose sand are blown from 
the surfaces of the moulds, and the twenty-four copes 
are replaced, and secured in their correct positions with 
keys or clamps. 

A final visit is now made to the furnace. The fusion 
is found to be complete; the "pigs" are converted into 
a molten pool. It only remains to pour the hot metal 
into the moulds. The instructor seizes an iron ladle lined 
with clay, holds it under the spout of the furnace reser- 
voir until it is nearly filled with the glowing fluid, lifts 
and carries it carefully across the room, and pours the 
contents into a mould. Then the students, in squads, 
after having been cautioned as to the deadly nature of 
the molten mass they are to handle, follow the example 
of their instructor. At this moment the laboratory ap- 
peals powerfully to the imagination. The picture it pre- 
sents is weird in the extreme. From the open furnace 
door a stream of crimson light floods the room. The 
students wear paper caps and are bare-armed ; their faces 
glow in the reflected glare of the furnace-fire ; they march 
up to the furnace one by one, each receiving a ladleful 
of steaming hot metal, and countermarch to their benches, 



THE FOUNDING LABORATORY. 55 

where they pour the contents of their ladles into the 
moulds. 

Still holding his empty ladle in his hand, the instruct- 
or watches the progress of the lesson with keen interest 
antil the last stream of metal has found its way into 
the throat of the last mould. He recalls the story of 
Vulcan, the God of Fire, and of all the arts and indus- 
tries dependent upon it, and wonders why he was not 
depicted pouring tons of molten metal, in the fonndery, 
rather than sledge in hand at the forge. Then he regards 
the class with a benignant expression of pride, begs for 
silence, and says, " Thus were the hundred brazen gates 
of ancient Babylon cast long before the beginning of 
the Christian era." Herodotus did not think to tell us 
much of the state of the useful arts in the early time of 
which he wrote, but the brazen gates attracted his atten- 
tion, and he described them : " At the end of each street 
a little gate is found in the wall along the river-side, in 
number equal to the streets, and they are all made of 
brass, and lead down to the edge of the river." Could 
Herodotus have foreseen what a deep interest his readers 
of this remote time would take in the history of the use- 
ful arts, he would have written less about the walls, pal- 
aces, and temples of Babylon, and more about the artif- 
icers. He would have begged admission to the forges 
and founderies of the city ; he would have visited the 
Assyrian founder at his work, questioned him about his 
processes, and set down his answers with painstaking 
care. Then he would have sought an introduction to 
the smithy, and from the grimy forger learned what he 
could tell of his art and of kindred arts. So the father 
of history might have made an enduring record of the 
real things which throughout all time have contriI>uted 



56 MIND AND HAND. 

to the advancement of the human race, rather than of 
events growing out of the ambitions and passions of men 
— the rise and fall of kingdoms and empires, the varying 
fortune of battle, the treacheries, crimes, and brutalities 
of rulers, and the cringing submission of millions of sub- 
jects. But, alas, the founders and smiths, and all the 
other cunning artificers of the vast empire of Syria, were 
slaves ! and through their ancestry for unnumbered gen- 
erations the stigma of slavery had attached to labor. 
Ay, on the bare backs of the founders of Babylon's bra- 
zen gates the popular scorn of labor had doubtless left its 
livid brand. 

With these pariahs of Assyrian society, these outcasts 
of the social circle, the great Greek historian could not 
even speak. Descended from a long line of noble Hali- 
carnassian families, Herodotus felt all the prejudices of 
the hereditary aristocracy of his country. Hence he di- 
lates upon the wonders of Babylon, but is silent as to its 
architects and artisans. He describes with great minute- 
ness of detail tlie tower of Jupiter Belus, but gives no 
hint of the name of its designer and builder. He de- 
clares that Babylon was adorned in a manner surpass- 
ing any city of the time, but in regard to the artificers 
through whose ingenuity and skill such pleasing effects 
were produced he gives no sign. 

The silence of Herodotus on the subject of the use- 
ful arts in Babylon does not indicate a want of appreci- 
ation of their value, but merely shows contempt of the 
Assyrian artisan, and this not because he was an artisan, 
but because he was a slave. The story of Solon and 
Croesus, whicli antedates Herodotus, whether true or a 
myth, shows that iron and artisanship were appreciated 
by both Greeks and barbarians. When Croesus had 



THE FOUNDING LABORATORY. 57 

exhibited to the Greek sage his vast hoard of treasures, 
Solon said, " If another comes that hath better iron than 
you he will be master of all this gold." Here is a recog- 
nition of the immense value of the arts of smeltinir and 
forging, coupled with a contemptuous silence regarding 
as well the smelter and the smith as the rank and file 
of the armies who should M^eld the swords and spears 
drawn by science from the recesses of the earth, and by 
art wrought and tempered at the forge. Through all 
the early ages the brand and scorn of slavery adhered to 
labor, while the arts, the products of labor, were often 
deified. Thus the Scythian, who from a grinning skull 
drank the warm blood of his captive, regarded with super- 
stitious awe as a god the iron sword with which he cut 
off his captive's head. 

It was dnly with the revival of learning, after the in- 
tellectual and moral gloom of the Dark Ages, that labor 
began slowly to lift its bowled head and assert itself. 
But it does not yet stand erect. It still stoops as if in 
the presence of a master. Every now and then it winces 
and cringes as if the sound of the descending lash smote 
its ear. It remains for you, students in this school of 
the arts — all the arts that make mankind good and great 
— it remains for you to brush away from the tear-stained 
^face of labor all the shadows accumulated there through 
all the dead ages of oppression and slavery. It remains 
for you to make labor bold by making it intelligent. It 
remains for you to dignify and ennoble labor by bestow- 
ing upon it the ripest scientific and artistic culture, and 
devoting to its service the best energies of body and 
mind. 



58 MIND AND HAND. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE FORGING LABORATORY. 

Twenty-four manly-looking Boys with Sledge-hammer in Hand — 
their Muscle and Brawn. — The Pride of Conscious Strength.— 
The Story of the Origin of an Empire.— The Greater Empire of 
Mechanics.— The Smelter and the Smith the Bulwark of the Brit- 
ish Government.— Coal— its Modern Aspects; its Early History; 
Superstition regarding its Use. — Dud. Dudley utilizes " Pit-coal " 
for Smelting— the Story of his Struggles ; his Imprisonment and 
Death.— The English People import their Pots and Kettles.—" The 
Blast is on and the Forge Fire sings. "—The Lesson, first on the 
Black-board, then in Red-hot Iron on the Anvil.— Striking out the 
Anvil Chorus— the Sparks fly whizzing through the Air.— The 
Mythological History of Iron.— The Smith in Feudal Times— His 
Versatility. — History of Damascus Steel. — We should reverence 
the early Inventors. — The Useful Arts finer than the Fine Arts. — 
The Ancient Smelter and Smith, and the Students in the Manual 
Training School. 

This is the Forging Laboratory. It is only a few steps 
from the laboratory for founding, where we lately saw 
twenty-four students taking off their leather aprons after 
a two hours' lesson in moulding and casting. Here we 
find, also, twenty-four students, but not the twenty-four 
we saw in the laboratory for founding. This class is 
more advanced. The boys are a trifle taller; they show 
more muscle, more strength, and bear themselves with a 
still more confident air. 

In the Forging Laboratory there are twenty-four forges 
with all essential accessaries, as anvils, tubs, and sets of. 
ordinary band-tools. 



THE FORGING LABORATORY. 61 

The students, with coats off and sleeves rolled above 
their elbows, in pairs, as smith and helper, stand, sledge 
and tongs in hand, at twelve of the forges. They are 
raanlj-looking boys. Their feet are hrrnly planted, their 
bodies erect, their heads thrown a little back. Their 
arms show brawn ; the muscles stand out in relief from 
the solid flesh. Their faces express the pride of con- 
scious strength, and their eyes show animation. 

As we regard the class w4th a sympathetic thrill of 
satisfaction, the story of the origin of the Turkish Em- 
pire is recalled : "A race of slaves, living in the moimt- 
ain regions of Asia, are employed by a powerful Khan 
to forge weapons for his use in war. A bold chief per- 
suades them to use the weapons forged for a master to 
secure their own deliverance. For centuries after they 
had thus conquered their freedom, the Turkish people 
celebrated their liberation by an annual ceremony in 
which a piece of iron was heated in the fire, and a smith's 
hammer successively handled by the prince and his no- 
bles." 

The greatest empire in the world to-day is the em- 
pire of the art of mechanism, and its most potent instru- 
ment is iron. Once the perpetuity of governments de- 
pended upon the mere possession of the dingy ore. 
When Elizabeth came to the throne, in the middle of 
the sixteenth century, England was almost defenceless, 
owing to the short supply of iron. Spain, much better 
equipped, hence relied confidently upon her ability to 
subdue the English. But the Virgin Queen, compre- 
hending the nature of the crisis, imported iron from 
Sweden and encouraged the Sussex forges, and the Span- 
ish Armada was defeated. Thus the smelter and the 
smith became the bulwark of the British government. 



62 MIND AND HAND. 

But at an earlier period the fraternity of smiths gave 
direction to the course of empire. The secret of the 
easy conquest of Britain by the Normans was their supe- 
rior armor. They were clad in steel, and their horses 
were shod with iron. The chief farrier of William be- 
came an earl ; and he was proud of his origin, for his coat 
of arms bore six horseshoes. 

Iron and civilization are terms of equivalent import. 
Iron is king, and the smelter and smith are his chief 
ministers. It is not known when, by whom, or how the 
art of smelting iron was discovered. As well ask by 
whom and how fire was discovered? These are secrets 
of the early morning of human life — of that time when 
man made no record of his struggles. 

In lieu of history the instructor resorts to tradition, 
repeating the following legend : " While men were pa- 
tiently rubbing sticks to point them into arrows, a spark 
leapt forth and ignited the wood- dust which had been 
scraped from the sticks, and so fire was found." 

Now the "helper" looks to his "blast" with keen in- 
terest ; for the management of the forge-fire is one of 
the niceties of the smith's art. He stirs the fire a little 
impatiently. The instructor heeds the act, but not the 
movement of impatience. On the contrary he seizes tlie 
occasion to introduce the subject of coal. Question fol- 
lows question in rapid succession, and the answers are 
prompt and satisfactory, touching all modern aspects of 
the subject, namely, the magnitude of the annual " out- 
put," the localities of heaviest production, the cost of 
mining ; the uses, respectively, to which different qual- 
ities are applied, demand and supply, and market value 
or price. Here the instructor remarks that the mining, 
transportation, and sale of coal are conducted in this coun- 



THE FORGING LABORATORY. 63 

try by a number of large corporations, with an aggregate 
capitalization and bonded indebtedness of six or seven 
hundred million dollars, and that throngh combinations 
between these corporations the price is often arbitra- 
rily advanced. " But," he concludes, " the discussion of 
that branch of the subject belongs more properly to the 
class in political economy." 

The history of coal in its relation to iron smelting and 
manufacture forms a curious chapter in the vicissitudes 
of the useful arts. One hundred and fifty years ago 
not only all the smith's fires but the smelter's fires were 
kept up with charcoal. The forests of England were 
literally swept away, like chaff before the wind, to feed 
the yawning mouths of the iron mills. To make a ton 
of iron required the consumption of hundreds of cords 
of wood. To save the timber restrictive legislation was 
adopted, and the mills were gradually closed for want of 
fuel, until, in 1788, there w^as not one left in Sussex, and 
only a small number in the kingdom. Meantime the Eng- 
lish iron supply came from Sweden, Spain, and Germany. 
England seemed to be following in the footsteps of the 
Koman Empire. The Romans accomplished in iron 
smelting and forging just what might be expected of 
a warlike people. They required iron for arms and 
armor, and in smelting skimmed the surface. This is 
proved by the cinder heaps, rich in ore, which they left 
in Britain. Archaeologists trace the decline of Rome in 
her monuments, which show a steady deterioration in the 
soldier's equipment. Alison attributes this decline to 
the exhaustion of her gold and silver mines. A far more 
plausible conjecture is found in the waste of timber in 
fuel for smelting purposes, and the resulting failure of 
the iron supply. 



64 MIND AND HAND. 

The fall of the Roman Empire may be accounted for 
by her neglect of the useful arts. The nation that 
converts all her iron into swords and spears shall surely 
perish. Had the city of Seven Hills possessed seven 
men of mechanical genius like Watt, Stephenson, Mauda- 
lay, Clement, Whitney, Neilson, and ^asmyth, her fall 
might have been averted, or if not averted, it need not 
have involved the practical extinction of civilization, thus 
imposing upon mankind the shame of the Dark Ages. 

At the beginning of the seventeenth century there was 
much ignorant prejudice against the use of mineral coal. 
It was believed to be injurious to health. All sorts of dis- 
eases were attributed to its supposed malignant influence, 
and at one time to burn it in dwellings was made a penal 
offence. But this prejudice did not extend to its use in 
smelting iron, and whatever there was of inventive gen- 
ius was devoted to a solution of the problem of its adapt- 
ation to such purposes. Mr. Samuel Smiles has collected 
the names of the most prominent of these Dutch and 
German mechanics, namely, Sturtevant, Rovenzon, Jor- 
dens,. Fran eke, and Sir Philibert Yernatt, and given each 
a niche in the temple of fame. Some of them had a true 
conception of the required processes, but they all faiied 
to render the apjDlication practically availabloo 

It remained for Dud. Dudley to succeed in making a 
thoroughly practical application of mineral coal to iron- 
smelting purposes, and then curiously enough to fail of 
success in introducing it into genei^al use. Dudley was 
born in 1599, in an iron-manufacturing district. His fa- 
ther owned iron-works near the town of Dudley, which 
was a collection of forges and workshops where " nails, 
horseshoes, keys, locks, and common agricultural tools" 
were made. Brought up in the neighborhood of " twen- 



THE FORGING LABORATORY. 65 

ty thousand smiths and workers in iron," young Dudley 
"attained considefable knowledge of the various proc- 
esses of manufacture." At twenty years of age he was 
taken from college and placed in charge of a furnace and 
two forges in Worcestershire, where there was a scarcity 
of wood but an abundance of mineral coal. He began 
immediately to experiment, with a view to the substitu- 
tion of the latter for the former, and in a year succeed- 
ed in demonstrating " the practicability of smelting iron 
with fuel made from pit-coal, which so many before him 
had tried in vain." But the charcoal iron-masters com- 
bined to resist the new method because it cheapened the 
product. They instigated mobs to destroy Dudley's fur- 
naces one after another, as soon as they were complet- 
ed, harassed him with lawsuits, and finally beggared and 
drove him to prison. Then they tried to wring his se- 
cret from him. To this attemjDt Cromwell, who was in- 
terested in furnaces in the Forest of Dean, is said to have 
been a party. But all these efforts failed, and Dudley 
died in 1684 carrying his secret with him to the grave, 
and there the secret slumbered nearly one hundred years. 

The story of Dud. Dudley, as told by Mr. Smiles in his 
" Iron- workers and Tool-makers," is one of surpassing 
interest. It is worthy the careful perusal not only of 
every school-boy but of the philosophic student in search 
of the lessons of history, for it affords fresh evidence of 
the truth of the proposition that the progress of civiliza- 
tion depends upon progress in invention and discovery. 

Under the influence of ignorance, prejudice, and super- 
stition the iron industry of England continued to decline 
until the beginning of the eighteenth century, when the 
British people imported their pots and kettles. Fifty 
years later, at the Coal brookd ale iron- works in Shropshire, 

4 



66 MIND AND HAN3)» 

when the furnaces had consumed all the wood in the 
neighborhood and a fuel famine was imminent, smelting 
with mineral coal was successfully resumed, and in 1766 
two workmen of the " works " — the brothers Cranege — in- 
vented the reverberatory furnace, which added immense- 
ly to the application of coal to smelting purposes. 

But while we are discussing the history of coal we are 
consuming coal to little purpose, for the blast is on and 
the furnace fires glow like miniature volcanic craters. 
Let us to work. Before the black-board, chalk in hand, 
the instructor stands and gives out the lesson. He pre- 
sents it in the form of drawings, complete and in detail. 
It may involve only the single process of " drawing," or 
it may involve several processes, as " drawing," " bend- 
ing," and " welding." The first sketch, for example, rep- 
resents a flat bar of iron, the counterpart of the bars rest- 
ing against the several forges. The second sketch shows 
the bar wrought into the form of a cylinder. The third 
sketch shows it " drawn " or lengthened, and hence re- 
duced in size. The fourth sketch presents two rods the 
united lengths of which equal the length of the original 
rod. The fifth sketch represents the two rods "bent" 
into the form of chain-links, and a sub-sketch shows the 
proper shape of the ends of the links for "welding." 
The sixth sketch shows the two links joined and welded. 

The black-board illustrations may be omitted if the 
school is provided with a complete set of samples. The 
school of mechanic arts of the Massachusetts Institute of 
Technology has a hundred samples representing the suc- 
cessive steps in blacksmithing manipulation, including 
welding, and the welding samples consist of two parts, 
the first representing the details of the piece prepared 
for welding, and the second the welded piece. These 



THE FORGING LABORATORY. 69 

samples are part of a collection of three hundred and 
twenty pieces of exquisite workmanship, covering every 
department of a complete manual training course, pre- 
sented to the Institute in 1877 by the Emperor of Eussia. 

The black-board illustrations or the samples having 
been exhibited and explained as clearly as is possible in 
words, the instructor takes his place at one of the forges, 
and, surrounded by the class, goes through with the suc- 
cessive steps of any manipulation contained in the lesson 
which has not been actually wrought out in some pre- 
vious lesson. 

, If the manipulation is a simple one the silence is only 
broken by the sound of the blast and the stroke of the 
hammer — the students understand every turn of the iron 
and every blow struck by the instructor — but if the 
manipulation is complicated, involving a fresh principle, 
the instructor is saluted by a volley of questions, and he 
often pauses to answer them. It is the time for ques- 
tions ; the more questions now, the fewer questions when 
all the blasts shall be on, and all the sledges flying through 
the air and making music on the anvils. A question now 
may lead to the enlightenment of twenty-four students ; a 
question later is sure to cost the time of twenty-four stu- 
dents, and the answer to it may enlighten only one student. 

At last the instructor drops the sledge, straightens up 
to his full height, and wipes the sweat from his brow. 
If the students respect the instructor they will respect 
labor, and they will respect the instructor if he is worthy 
of respect. 

l^ow the school-room is a smithy and yet it is not. It 
is neither very hot nor very smoky, for there is an ex- 
haust fan in operation which vitalizes the circulation. 
But the atmosphere resounds with the clangorous strokes 



70 MIND AND HAND. 

of a dozen sledges, mingled with the snllen roar of as 
many forge -fires; and there are traces of soot on the 
walls, and pale smoke-wreaths creep along the ceilings, 
and hide in corners, and circle about columns in fantastic 
shapes. It is a smithy, but a smithy adapted, by its ex- 
traordinary neatness, to the manufacture of watch-springs, 
palate-arbors, and Damascus blades. 

The faces of the students are aglow with the flush of 
health-giving exercise ; their brows are " wet with honest 
sweat," their heart -beats are full and strong, and the 
crimson life-currents surge hotly through every vein to 
their very finger-tips. They strike out the anvil chorus 
in all the keys and in every measure of the scale, and 
the burning sparks fly whizzing through the air. 

At a sign from the instructor there is a pause. The 
students stand at ease and the work is inspected. This 
is the time for more questions if any student is in doubt ; 
and the rest of five minutes affords opportunity for a 
brief lecture on the subject of the early history of the 
fraternity of smiths. 

Mythology gives the highest place in its pantheon to 
Yulcan, the God of Fire. For notwithstanding he is rep- 
resented as bearded, covered with dust and soot, blowing 
the fires of his forges and surrounded by his chief minis- 
ters, the Cyclops, he is given Yenus to wife and made the 
father of Cupid. Among the Scythians the iron sword 
was a god. When Jerusalem was taken by the Baby- 
lonians they made captives of all the smiths and other 
craftsmen of the city — a more grievous act than the 
thousand million dollar tribute levied upon France by 
Germany at the close of the war of 1870. For to be de- 
prived of the use of iron is to be relegated to a state of 
barbarism. 



THE FORGING LABORATORY. 71 

The vulgar accounted for the keenness of the first 
sword-blades on the score of magic, and the praises of 
the smiths who forged were sung with the chiefs of chiv- 
alry who wielded them. So highly was this mysterious 
power regarded by Tancred, the crusader, that in return 
for the present of King Arthur's sword, Excalibar, by 
Richard I., he paid for it with " four great ships and fif- 
teen galleys." 

The smith was a mighty man in England in the early 
time. " In the royal court of Wales he sat in the great 
hall with the king and queen, and was entitled to a 
draught of every kind of liqnor served." His person 
was sacred ; his calling placed him above the law. He 
was necessary to the feudal state; he forged swords 
" on the temper of which life, honor, and victory in bat- 
tle depended." The smith, after the J^orman invasion, 
gained in importance in England. He was the chief 
man of the village, its oracle, and the most cunning work- 
man of the time. His name descended to more families 
than that of any other profession — for the origin of the 
name Smith is the hot, dusty, smoky smithy, and how- 
ever it may be disguised in the spelling, it is entitled to 
the proud distinction which its representatives sometimes 
seek to conceal. 

Mr. Smiles draws the following graphic picture of the 
versatility of the smith of the Middle Ages : 

" The smith's tools were of many sorts, but the chief 
were his hammer, pincers, chisel, tongs, and anvil. It is 
astonishing what a variety of articles he turned out of 
his smithy by the help of these rude implements. In 
the tooling, chasing, and consummate knowledge of the 
capabilities of iron he greatly surpassed the modern 
workman. The numerous exquisite specimens of his 



72 MIND AND HAND. 

handicraft which exist in our old gate- ways, church doors, 
altar railings, and ornamented dogs and andirons, still 
serve as types for continual reproduction. He was, in- 
deed, the most ' cunning workman ' of his time. But be- 
sides all this he was an engineer. If a road had "to be 
made, or a stream embanked, or a trench dug, he was in- 
variably called upon to provide the tools, and often to 
direct the work. He was also the military engineer of 
his day, and as late as the reign of Edward III. we find 
the king repeatedly sending for smiths from the Forest 
of Dean to act as engineers for the royal army at the 
siege of Berwick." 

But the most signal triumph of the art, both of the 
smelter and the smith, is found in the famous swords of 
Damascus, whose edge and temper were so keen and per- 
fect that they would sever a gauze veil floating in the 
air, or crash through bones and helmets without sustain- 
ing injury. These Damascus blades, long renowned in 
the East, but first encountered by Europeans during the 
crusades, in the hands of the followers of Mahomet, were 
made of Indian steel or " wootz." This steel, produced 
in the forjn of little cakes weighing about two pounds 
each, in the neighborhood of the city of Golconda, in 
Hindostan, was transported on the backs of camels two 
thousand miles to the city of Damascus, and there con- 
verted into swords, sabres, and scimitars. 

This smith's work has never been excelled, if equalled. 
Millions of dollars have been expended in efforts to pro- 
duce the equal of Indian steel. Aniong the investigators 
of the subject the most noted was a Russian general, 
Anossoff, who died in 1851. His experiments were of 
a very elaborate and exhaustive character. They occu- 
pied a lifetime, and resulted in the establishment of 



THE FORGING LABORATORY. 73 

works in the Ural Mountains, on the Siberian border, for 
the production of Damascus steel by a process of his 
own invention. After General Anossoff's death the qual- 
ity of the steel produced at his works deteriorated. 

We should treat with reverence these obscure hints of 
the triuniplis of the ancients in certain departments of 
art as suggestive of like great achievements in other di- 
rections, for without a knowledge of types they could 
neither teach the many what the few knew, nor preserve 
what they had acquired for the instruction of future 
ages. All art is the product of a sequential series of 
ideas, each idea containing the germ of the next ; hence 
the preservation of each idea is essential to progress. 
The art of 'printing alone enables man to preserve such a 
record. It follows presumptively that the art of print- 
ing constitutes the predominant feature of difference 
between the civilization of the moderns and that of the 
ancients. And it is important to observe that the art of 
printing is far m.ore necessary to progress in the useful 
arts than in the so-called fine arts. The ancient temples 
with their sculptured splendors — the Parthenon, the Ju- 
piter Olympius, and scores of others — remained long to 
testify to the genius of Phidias, Praxiteles, and tlieir gift- 
ed colleagues of the chisel. These souvenirs of Greek 
genius still serve as models for the architect and the 
sculptor. It needs no chronicle to prove that they mark 
the culmination of the fine arts. If the moderns have 
failed to excel, or even equal them, it is not because their 
conception, design, or construction involved occult proc- 
esses. It is rather because there is a limit to the devel- 
opment of the so-called fine arts, and that limit in archi- 
tecture and sculpture was reached in Greece more than 
two thousand years ago. 



74 MIND AND HAND. 

But with the Damascus blade, which typifies the use- 
ful arts, it is entirely different. It, too, is in itself a tri- 
umph of genius not less pronounced than the Athena of 
Phidias. But above and beyond this the arts of smelt- 
ino- and forging are so subtile as almost to elude the 
grasp of analysis. ^N'ot only the method of the fabrica- 
tion of the Damascus blade but the processes involved 
in the production of the steel entering into its compo- 
sition — all these are shrouded in impenetrable mystery. 
It follows that the useful arts are finer than the so- 
called fine arts. Their processes are more intricate, and 
hence more difficult of comprehension. To a solution 
of the questions presented in the course of their study 
an extended acquaintance with the sciences is essential. 
The highest departments of the fine arts, so-called, re- 
quire only a study of the features, figure, and character 
of man, and of certain visible forms of nature, while 
the useful arts make incessant demands upon the re- 
sources of natural philosophy. The chemist toils in his 
laboratory, and the botanist and the geologist explore 
forest, field, and mine in search of new truths, with the 
single purpose of enlarging the sphere of the useful arts, 
and so of ministering more effectively to the ever in- 
creasing needs of man. Hence there can be no limit to 
the development of the useful arts except the limit to be 
found in the exhaustion of the forces of nature. 

We should, then, venerate the artisan rather than the 
artist. Let us invoke the shade of the dusky Indian 
smelter. See him in the dark recesses of the forest, 
bending in rapt attention over his furnace, or holding 
aloft a little lump of his matchless steel. Alas, he is 
dumb ! His secret perished with him. But the Indian 
smelter and the Damascus smith are kin to all the invent- 



THE FORGING LABORATORY. 75 

ors and discoverers of all the ages. Across continents 
and seas, over trackless wastes of history — epochs during 
which ignorance and superstition prevailed and the intel- 
lect of man slumbered — the ancient smelter and the 
ancient smith extend their shadowy hands to the stu- 
dents in this school of the nineteenth century — extend 
them in token of the fellowship of a common struggle 
and a common hope of triumph — the struggle after 
truthj^and the hope of the triumph of industry. 

The instructor raps on the black-board, and the school- 
room is at once transformed into a smithy. Again the 
forge-fires roar, and again the anvils resound under the 
stroke of the hammer. For half an hour the lesson goes 
on, and then comes the wind-up, and the several tests 
of excellence are applied to the completed task of each 
student. Form, dimensions, finish — these are the tests. 
The instructor marks the several pieces of work, makes a 
record of the result, reads the record, and is on the point 
of dismissing the class when an idea occurs to his mind 
and he enjoins silence. Taking in his hand a heavy 
sledge, and resting it on the anvil before him, he says, 
^' This is a baby-hammer, and all the forging we do here 
is baby-forging. I hope soon to have an opportunity to 
take you to the great works of Mr. Crane, in this city, 
and there show you a steam-hammer which weighs a ton 
striking fifty to one hundred blow^s a minute — blows, too, 
that shame the fabled power of Yulcan, the God of Fire. 
At Pittsburg, Pa., there is an anvil of 150 tons weight 
which serves for forging with a 15-ton hammer. But 
the monster steam-hammer is to be found in Krupp's cast- 
steel works at Essen, Germany. The hammer-head is 12 
feet long, 5J feet wide, 4 feet thick, weighs 50 tons, and 
has a stroke of 9 feet. The depth of the foundation 



•76 MIND AND PIAND. 

is 100 feet, consisting of three parts, masonry, timber, 
and iron, bolted together. Four cranes, each capable of 
bearing 200 tons, serve the hammer with material." 

The steam-hammer was invented in 1837 by James 
IS'asmyth, of England, in response to a demand for a 
hammer that would forge a steamship paddle-shaft of 
unprecedented size. The nature of the emergency being 
presented to his mind, Mr. Nasmyth conceived the idea 
of the steam-hammer instantaneously, as it were, and at 
once proceeded to sketch the child of his brain on paper. 
He was too poor to defray the cost of patenting his in- 
vention ; nor was he able to procure the necessary funds 
for that purpose until he had seen in France a hammer 
made from his own original sketch in operation. 

The steam-hammer came rapidly into use, superseding 
all others of the ponderous sort, increasing the quantity 
of products and reducing the cost of manufacture by 
fifty per cent. It was through the steam-hammer only 
that the fabrication of the immense wrought-iron ord- 
nance and the huge plates for covering ships-of-war of 
modern times became possible. In the hands of the 
giant, steam, Mr. Nasmyth's hanmier, even if it weigh 
fifty tons, is susceptible of more accurate strokes than 
the tack-hammer in the hands of the upholsterer, or the 
sledge in the hands of the most skilled blacksmith. It 
cruPthes tons of iron into a shapeless mass at one blow, 
and at the next drives a tack, or cracks an egg-shell in an 
egg-cup without injuring the cup. 

Mr. Nasmyth, in 1845, applied the steam-hammer prin- 
ciple to the pile-driver. With this wonderful machine 
the " driving - block," w^eighing several tons, descends 
eighty times a minute on the head of the pile, sending 
it home with almost incredible rapidity. The saving of 



THE FORGING LABORATORY. 77 

time as compared with the old method is in the ratio of 
1 to 1800 ; that is, a pile can be driven in four minutes 
that before required twelve hours. 

The course in the Forging Laboratory extends from the 
making and care of forge-fires to case-hardening iron and 
hardening and temj^ering steel ; and competent and ex- 
perienced instructors declare that the student in tlie edu- 
cational smithy gains as much skill in a day as the smith's 
apprentice gains in a year in the ordinary shop. 

1 The inquiry of truth, which is the love-making or wooing of it; 
the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it; and the belief 
of truth, which is the enjoying of it— is the sovereign good of human 
nature." — Essays of Francis Bacon—" Truth," p. 2. London: Henry 
G. Bohn, 1852. 



78 MIND AND HAND 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE MACHINE-TOOL LABORATORY. 

The Foundery and Smithy are Ancient, the Machine-tool Shop is Mod- 
ern.— The Giant, Steam, reduced to Servitude.— The Iron Lines of 
Progress — They converge in the Shop ; its triumphs from the Watch- 
spring to the Locomotive.— The Applications of Iron in Art is the 
Subject of Subjects. — The Story of Invention is the History of 
Civilization.— The Machine-maker and the Tool-maker are the best 
Friends of Man. — Watt's Great Conception waited for Automatic 
Tools ; their Accuracy. — The Hand-made and the Machine-made 
Watch. — The Elgin (Illinois) Watch Factory. — The Interdepen- 
dence of the Arts. — The Making of a Suit of Clothes.— The Ante- 
room of the Machine-tool Laboratory. — Chipping and Filing.— The 
File-cutter.— The Poverty of Words as compared with Things. — 
The Graduating Project. — The Vision of the Instructor. 

The transition from the laboratories for founding and 
forging to the Machine-tool Laboratory symbolizes a 
mighty revolution in the practical arts — a revolution so 
stupendous as to defy description, and so far-reaching as 
to appall the spirit of prophecy. The foundery and the 
smithy date back to the dawn of history ; the machine- 
tool shop is a creation of yesterday. About the early 
manipulations of iron mythology wove a web of fancy : 
Yulcan forged Jove's thunderbolts, the iron sword of 
the savage was a god, and even far down the course of 
time, late in the Middle Ages, Tancred, the crusader, paid 
an almost fabulous sum for King Arthur's famous sword 
Excalibar^but the modern machine-tool shop is a huge 
iron automaton, without sentiment, and possessing no 
poetry except the rhythmic harmony of motion. In this 



THE MACHINE-TOOL LABORATORY. 81 

shop steam is reduced to servitude, and coraj)elled with 
giant hands to bore, mortise, plane, polish, fashion, and 
fit great masses of iron, and, anon, with delicate fingers 
to spin gossamer threads of burnished steel. With the 
hot steam coursing through its steel -ribbed veins the 
brain of this automaton thinks the thoughts foreordained 
by its inventor; its hands do his bidding, its arms fetch 
and carry for him, its feet come and go at his beck 
and nod. This automaton feeds on iron, steel, copper, 
and brass, and produces the watch-spring and the loco- 
motive, the revolver and the Krupp gun, the surgeon's 
lancet and the shaft of a steamship, the steel pen and the 
steam-hammer, the vault -lock and the pile-driver, the 
sewing-machine and the Corhss engine. The lever which 
wakens this automaton to life, which endows its brain 
with genius and its fingers with cunning, is the rod of 
empire. All the lines of modern development converge 
in the machine-tool shop, and they are all lines of iron, 
whether consisting of a fine wire strung on poles in mid- 
air or of huge bars resting on the solid earth. Iron is 
the king of metals but the slave of man. Its magnetic 
quality guides the mariner on the sea, and its tough fibre 
and density sustain the weight of the locomotive on the 
land. It constitutes the foundation of every useful art, 
from the plough of the husbandman to the Jacquard 
loom of the weaver. But it is only in the machine-tool 
shop that the great steam-driven machines of commerce 
and manufacture can be produced. The ancients pos- 
sessed iron, which they cast in the foundery and forged 
in. the smithy; they knew the powder of steam, and the 
magicians of the time amused the populace w4th exhibi- 
tions of it, but they had no machine-tool shops in which 
steam could be harnessed for the journey across _conti- 



82 MIND AND HAND. 

nents and seas. The thousand and one modern applica- 
tions of iron to the needs of man have originated in the 
machine-tool shop. It is through these applications of 
iroD, not through iron itself, that human pursuits have 
been so widely diversified, and hmiian powers so richly 
developed and enlarged. 

The contrasts presented by the development of the 
useful arts during the last hundred years are startling: 
The toilsome journey of a day reduced to an hour with 
the maximum of comfort ; the few yards of fabric pain- 
fully woven by hand expanded into webs of cotton, lin- 
en, woollen, and silk cloths, rolling from thousands of 
steam-driven looms ; the stocking once requiring hours 
to make, now dropping second by second from the iron 
fingers of the knitting-machine ; the nails, screws, pins, 
and needles, forged one by one in the old village smithy, 
now flying from the hands of automatic machines by the 
thousand million ; the numberless stitches of the sewing- 
machine as compared with the few of the olden time, 
which made the fingers and the hearts of women ache ; 
the vast crop of cereals planted, cultivated, and gathered 
into barns with iron hands in contrast with the toilsome 
processes of even fifty years ago. These are only a 
few of the many illustrations that might be given of 
progress in the useful arts, and they all emanate from 
the machine-tool shop. 

At the threshold of the most important inquiry that 
ever occupied the mind of man stand the twenty-four 
students we have followed, with more or less regularity, 
through the various laboratories which constitute the 
preliminary steps in the manual training course. It is 
the most important inquiry that ever engaged the atten- 
tion of man, because it touches modern civilization at 



THE MACHINE-TOOL LABORATORY. 83 

more points than any otlier. It consists of an investiga- 
tion into the subject of the diversity of the applications 
of iron in art, a study both of the minute and the ponder- 
ous in iron tools and machines, and it is by these tools 
and machines that the bulk of the great enterprises of 
the men of modern times are carried forward. These 
students are familiar with the details of the laboratories 
for founding and forging, but the manipulations of those 
branches of iron manufacture are coarse and heavy as 
compared with those of the Machine-tool Laboratory. In 
a word, the difference between the iron manipulations of 
the Machine-tool Laboratory and those of the founding 
and forging laboratories is the exact measure of the dif- 
ference between the modern and the ancient systems of 
civilization. 

The ancient civilizations culminated in that of Rome. 
The Romans possessed iron, but confined their manipula- 
tions of it to the foundery and the smithy. Under the 
Roman empire the enterprises of man — commercial, man- 
ufacturing, and industrial generally — reached the limit 
marked by the applications of iron to the useful arts. It 
is not important in this connection to inquire why in- 
ventions and discoveries ceased. It is enough that they 
ceased. There was a pause ; man, risen to a giddy height, 
looked backward instead of forward and upward ; the 
struggle to advance came to an end, ambition died out of 
life, and a saturnalia of bloody crime and savage brutal- 
ity ensued. Exliaustion followed, tlien stagnation, moral 
and intellectual, and then the decay of all the arts. Tlie 
world stood still, and in that state of quiescence remain- 
ed until printing was invented and America discovered. 
Still it waited two hundred and fifty years before re- 
ceiving tlie first hint of steam-driven machines and the 



84 MIND AND HAND. 

machines and the machine tool-shop, and during all that 
time progress was painfully slow. Something was required 
to give to human ambition a grand impulse, and to open to 
human energy and industry a broad field. Tiiat something 
did not come until the middle of the eighteenth century, 
and it should never be forgotten that it came then through 
the humble men of the workshop. To their inventive 
genius mankind owes more than to all the philosophers, 
litterateurs^ professors, and statesmen of all time. These 
men of the w^orkshop — Huntsman, Cort, Roebuck, "Watt, 
Fulton, Mushet, Hargreaves, ]N"eilson, Whitney, Bramah, 
Maudslay, Clement, Murray, Roberts, the Stephensons, 
father and son, and Nasmyth— invented machines which 
seem to rival human intelligence, and in fact far excel 
human precision in the execution of their work. In en- 
dowing iron with the cunning of genius and the terrific 
power of the fabled cyclops, the modern mechanic has 
revolutionized the field of human effort, transferring it 
from the foundery and the smithy to the machine-tool 
shop. It is here, and here alone, that steam - driven 
machines can be made. They may be conceived in the 
mind of a Watt or a Stephenson, but they can be made 
only by the automatic tools of a Maudslay, a Clement, a 
Bramah, or a I^asmyth. Man was helpless without steam- 
driven machines, and he could not have steam-driven ma- 
chines until machine - made tools had been devised with 
which to make them. The experience of Watt striking- 
ly illustrates this point. When he had com2:)leted his in- 
vention of the steam-engine, he found it nearly impossible 
to realize his idea in a working machine, owing to the 
incompetency of the workmen of that time. In reply 
to the inquiry of Dr. Roebuck, " What is the principal 
hinderance in erecting engines?" he responds, "It is al 



THE MACHINE-TOOL LABORATORY. 85 

ways the sinitli-work." His first cylinder, made of liam- 
mered iron soldered together by a whitesmith, was a com- 
plete failure. But even such workmen were so scarce 
that upon the death of this " white-iron man " Watt was 
reduced almost to a state of despair. "Plis next cyHnder 
was cast and bored at Carron, but it was so untrue that 
it proved next to useless. The piston could not be kept 
steam-tight, notwithstanding the various expedients which 
were adopted of stuffing it with paper, cork, putty, paste- 
board, and old hats." Smeaton, the best workman of the 
time, " expressed the opinion, when he saw the engine at 
work, that notwithstanding the excellence of the inven- 
tion it could never be brought into general use because 
of the difficulty of getting its various parts manufactured 
with sufficient precision." Watt constantly complained 
of " villanous bad workmanship." " Machine-made tools 
were unknown, hence there were no good tools. At- 
tempting to run an engine of the old regime, the foreman 
of the shop gave it up in despair, exclaiming, " I think 
we had better leave the cogs to settle their differences 
with one another; they will grind themselves right in 
time." Contrast with this clumsy machine of the hand- 
tool era the Corliss engine of the present day, whose 
every movement possesses the noiseless grace of a wom- 
an and the conscious power of a giant ; and this giant 
springs full-armed from the machine-tool shop as Miner- 
va sprang from the brain of Jupiter. Mr. Smiles says, 
"When the powerful oscillating engines of the War- 
rior were put on board that ship, the parts, consisting of 
some five thousand se23arate pieces, were brought from 
the different workshops of the Messrs. Penn & Sons, 
where they had been made by workmen who knew not 
the places they were to occupy, and fitted together with 



86 MIND AND HAND. 

such precision that so soon as the steam was raised and 
let into the cjKnders the immense machine began as if 
to breathe and move like a living creature, stretching its 
huge arms like a new-born giant ; and then, after prac- 
tising its strength a little, and proving its soundness in 
body and limb, it started off with the power of above a 
thousand horses, to try its strength in breasting the bil- 
lows of the North Sea." 

The great and small tools, the automata of the ma- 
chine-shop, are no less triumphs of mechanical genius 
than the " powerful oscillating engines of the Warrior.^^ 
The prime difficulty of the hand-worker was to make two 
things exactly alike, then followed the- impossibility of 
making many things — the narrow limit of human capac- 
ity to produce. At that point the inventor appeared 
with a machine which would make a thousand things in 
the time the hand -worker required to make one, and 
each one of them the exact counterpart of every other. 

A hundred years ago John Arnold, the inventor of the 
chronometer, accomplished a marvel of patience and in- 
genuity in the form of a watch the size of twopence and 
the weight of sixpence. The workmanship was so deli- 
cate that he was compelled not only to fashion every 
part with his own hand, but to design and make the tools 
employed in its construction. The watch was presented 
to George III., of England, who showed his appreciation 
of Arnold's mechanical skill in a present of 'Q.Ye hundred 
guineas. The Emperor of Russia offered Arnold $5000 
for a duplicate of the w^onderful little time-piece, which 
offer w^as, however, declined. It Tvas so difficult for the 
expert watch-maker of a century ago to make two things 
exactly alike, that Arnold could not afford to undertake 
to make another miniature watch even for the exorbitant 



THE MACHINE-TOOL LABORATORY. 87 

price of $5000. But for ten dollars the Elgin (Illinois) 
N'ational Watch Company will supply the Emperor of 
Russia with a machine-made watch more nearly perfect 
than Arnold's masterpiece, and on the same day turn out 
one thousand others exactly like it. Imagine yourself 
now in the watch factory of the Elgin Company ; observe 
that artisan holding in his hand a coil of fine steel wire 
weighing a pound. He approaches a machine, places one 
end of the wire in its iron fingers, presses a lever, and in 
a few minutes the coil is converted into two hundred 
thousand minute screws, each and every one as perfect 
as the best that Arnold made for his George III. gem. 

It is with the greatest effort of painstaking care that 
the expert sewing-woman draws two stitches closely re- 
sembling each other, yet while she is making the toil- 
some exertion of her utmost skill the sewing-machine 
sets hundreds of stitches so exactly alike that a micro- 
scopic examination would fail to detect the least dissimi- 
larity. 

The sewing-machine affords an admirable illustration 
of the interdependence of the practical arts. The sew- 
ing-woman was able to keep pace with the slow and toil- 
some processes of the distaff and loom, but upon the 
application of steam-power to spinning and weaving the 
demand for sewing was augmented a thousand-fold. If 
the sewing-machine has not emancipated woman from 
the drudgery so pathetically depicted by Tom Hood, it 
has multiplied the production of garments almost beyond 
the power of figures to express. 'Note this instance il- 
lustrative of the triumph of automatic machinery in its 
application to manufactures. " The Emperor of Aus- 
tria was lately presented with a suit of clothes possessing 
this remarkable history : The wool from which the gar- 



88 MIND AND HAND, 

ments were made was clij)ped from the sheep only elev- 
en hours before the suit was completed. At 6.08 in the 
morning the sheep were sheared; at 6.11 the wool was 
washed; at 6.37 dyed; at 6.50 picked; at 7.34 the final 
carding process was finished ; at eight o'clock it was 
spun ; at 8.15 spooled ; at 8.37 the warp was in the 
loom ; at 8.43 the shuttles were ready ; at 11.10 seven 
and three-fourth ells of cloth were completed ; at 12.03 
the cloth was fulled ; at 12.14 washed ; at 12.17 sprin- 
kled ; at 12.31 dried ; at 12.45 sheared ; at 1.07 napped ; 
at 1.10 brushed ; and at 1.15 prepared and ready for the 
shears and needle. At five o'clock the suit, consisting 
of a hunting- jacket, waistcoat, and trousers, was fin- 
ished." 

There is a sort of anteroom to the Machine-tool Labor- 
atory with which the students are thoroughly famihar. 
It is called the Chipping, Filing, and Fitting Laboratory, 
has twenty-four vises, a great assortment of cold-chisels 
and files, and is devoted to vise work. The course in 
the Chipping Filing and Fitting Laboratory consists of a 
score or more lessons involving various file and chisel 
manipulations, as, "filing to line," "dovetailing," "par- 
allel fitting tongues and grooves," " ring-work and free- 
hand filing," "chipping bevels," "ward-filing and key- 
fitting," "screw-filing," "scraping," etc., each lesson be- 
ing so devised as to insure the introduction of variously 
shaped tools, and their apjDlication to the forms of work 
for which they are designed. 

This anteroom to the Machine-tool Laboratory is like 
most anterooms plain in its appointments, and it is also 
like the conventional anteroom, a place wliere the student 
does not desire to remain long. Tlie witchery of the great 
laboratory beyond has already cast its spell over the boy 



THE MACHINE-TOOL LABORATORY. 91 

at the vise. But there is excellent hand and eye training 
work in the Chipping, Filing, and Fitting Laboratory. 

The file is a humble tool, but it is older than history, 
dating back to the Greek Mythological period. " From 
the smallest mouse-tail file used in the delicate operations 
of the watch and philosophical instrument maker, to the 
square file for the smith's heaviest work, there is a multi- 
farious diversity in shape, size, and gauge of cutting." 
Some of the files made by the Swiss for the watch-maker 
" are of so fine a cut that the unaided eye cannot discern 
the ridges." 

In no department of the useful arts did the hand- 
worker attain to greater dexterity than in file-cutting. 
With a sharp-edged chisel the file-cutter made from one 
hundred and fifty to two hundred " burs " a minute, and 
they were so fine as to be traced by the sense of touch 
alone, but as straight as though ruled by a machine. The 
hand -working file-cutter held his ground until 1859, 
when a Frenchman, M. Bernot, invented a file - cutting 
machine which superseded the old method of manufac- 
ture, except in cases requiring delicacy of manipulation, 
reducing the cost of files to one-eighth of their former 
price. 

Tlie lessons in the Machine-tool Laboratory will not be 
described in detail as in the other laboratories. The pro- 
cesses are so delicate and so intricate, and the resulting 
products in machines so closely approach the marvellous, 
as to beggar description. The poverty of words as com- 
pared with things asserts itself with unexampled force in 
the presence of a great variety of tools, each of which 
seems to be endowed with the power of reflection, and 
each of whicli, instead of whispering a word in your 
ear, drops into your hand a thing of use to man. 

The laboratory is silent, the tools are dumb, but how 



92 ' MIND AND HAND. 

eloquently tliej proclaim the era of comfort and luxury ! 
They have no tongue, but through their lips you shall 
speak across continents and under seas. They have no 
legs, but through their aid you shall, in a race round the 
world, outstrip Mercury. The machines they make shall 
bear all your burdens ; with their brawny arms they lift 
a thousand tons, and with their fingers of fairy -like deli- 
cacy pick up a pin ; with the augur of Hercules they 
bore a channel through the mountain of granite, and 
with a Liliputian gimlet tunnel one of the hairs of your 
head. 

These ingenious tools are worthy of careful inspection 
both on account of the marvels they perform and the 
delicacy of their construction and adjustments. One 
of them, a screw-engine lathe, for example, is taken to 
pieces, and each piece described in order that the stu- 
dents may be made familiar with the construction o'f the 
tool, and so rendered capable of taking good care of it. 
During this inspection the instructor outlines the history 
of the tool. The main feature is the slide-rest, invented 
by Maudslay while in the employ of Bramah, the lock- 
maker. It is not too much to say that two things exact- 
ly alike, or near enough alike, practically, to serve the 
same purpose very well, were never produced on the old- 
fashioned turning lathe. This the instructor endeavors 
to make clear to the class. He also explains precisely 
how Maudslay's improvement remedied the defects of 
the old-fashioned lathe. Still there remained something 
to be done to make it perfect, and putting the pieces to- 
gether the instructor shows where Maudslay's work end- 
ed and that of Clement began. Clement made two im- 
provements in the slide-rest, one involving the principle 
of self- correction, for which he received the gold Isis 



THE MACHINE-TOOL LABOKATOKY. 93 

medal of the Society of Arts in 1827, and the otJier 
consisting of the "self-adjusting double-driving centre 
check," for which he was awarded the silver medal of the 
same society in 1828. Thus improved or perfected, the 
slide -lathe became the acknowledged king of machine- 
tools, the self-adjusting two -armed driver taking the 
strain from the centre and dividing it between the two 
arms, and so correcting all tendency to eccentricity in 
the work. 

The Machine-tool Laboratory contains a great variety 
of tools, of which the chief are lathes, drills, and planers ; 
but there are many auxiliary tools, and in the advanced 
stages of the course a single lesson often affords oppor- 
tunity for the introduction of several of them. And, as 
in the other school laboratories, each tool, upon its first 
presentation to the class, forms the subject of a brief 
lecture — a practical lecture too, for the instructor uses 
the tool while he sketches its history and perhaps that 
of its inventor, shows what place it holds in the order 
of machine-tool development, and how admirably it is 
adapted to its particular work, and makes suggestions as 
to its care. Sometimes a lesson involves the use of a 
drawing made by the students a year before, and the 
piece of iron in which it is wrought is the product of a 
previous lesson in forging ; and it may also have been 
manipulated with the file or the cold-chisel, or both, in 
the Chipping, Filing, and Fitting Laboratory. 

From the first lesson in tlie room devoted to draw- 
ing, to the last lesson in the Machine-tool Laboratory, 
the course of training is orderly, consecutive. Each step 
contains a hint of the nature of the next step, and each 
succeeding step consists of a further aj^plication of the 
principles and j)rocesses of the last preceding step. In 



94 MIND AND HAND. 

a word, the students follow their drawings through all 
the laboratories till the designs "are brought out in a 
finished state either in cast or wrought iron.'^ 

The lathe is the fundamental machine-tool, but a com- 
pletely equipped machine-tool laboratory includes a great 
variety of supplementary or auxiliary tools, a thorough 
knowledge of which is essential to a good mechanical ed- 
ucation. It does not follow, because these tools are in a 
large degree automatic, that skill may be dispensed with 
in their use. Many of them are very complicated in de- 
sign and construction, and they can no more be made to 
do efficient service under an unskilled hand than a loco- 
motive can be made to accomplish a series of success- 
ful "runs " by an unskilled "driver." Hence every tool 
in the laboratory is made the subject of an exhaustive 
study. The principle of mechanics involved in its con- 
struction is expounded, a practical illustration of its 
method of operation is given, its peculiar liability to in- 
jury is explained, and rules for its care are carefully for- 
mulated, and frequently repeated. 

There is a prevalent theory that the wide application 
of so-called automatic tools to mechanical work largely 
decreases the legitimate demand for skilled mechanics, 
but it is fallacious. In the first place a thousand things 
are now made where one thing was made fifty years ago. 
In the second place the extensive use of steam and 
electricity greatly enlarges the sphere wherein accurate 
work becomes absolutely essential to human safety, and 
hence extends the field of operations of the inventive 
faculty. In the third place the cost of machine-tool 
made products having been greatly reduced, competition 
is proportionately intensified, thus narrowing the mar- 
gin of profit, and so rendering any injury to machinery 



THE MACHINE-TOOL LABORATORY. 97 

through want of skill in the operator relatively more 
disastrous. As a matter of fact a line machine-tool is 
more liable than a watch to get out of order through 
careless handling, and it no more than a watch, can be 
properly repaired by a bungler. It follows that skill in 
the use of machine-tools is as essential to a successful 
mechanical career now, as skill in the use of hand-tools 
was formerly. 

But another conclusion follows more irresistibly, name- 
ly — that the mechanical engineer who devotes his atten- 
tion to the construction and management of massive ma- 
chinery, such as pumps, hydraulic and lever presses, 
looms, and steam-engines, whether locomotive, marine, or 
other, must, in order to be master of his profession, be thor- 
oughly familiar with every step of their construction ; and 
such familiarity can only be acquired by a course of prac- 
tical study in the machine-tool shop. It is the province of 
the mechanical engineer to utilize certain forces of nature 
in the service of man, and it is only through the machine- 
tool shop that such utilization can be effected. It hence 
follows that a practical acquaintance wdth the manipula- 
tions of the machine-tool shop is an essential prerequisite 
to a successful career in the field of higher mechanics. 
The man who aspires to construct any great mechanical 
engineering work, like the Brooklyn Bridge, for exam- 
ple, must know the exact mechanical power of every 
piece of machinery he employs, as also the exact me- 
chanical value of every piece of iron that enters into the 
structure ; and these things he cannot know unless he 
is familiar with the entire series of iron manipulations, 
from those of the foundery to those of the machine-tool 
shop. 

The aspect of the Machine-tool Laboratory when in re- 



98 MIND AND HAND. 

pose, so to speak, is dull and uninteresting, not to say 
repellant. There are twenty-four engine-lathes, as many 
adjustable vises, a milling machine, and a variety of aux- 
iliary tools. The lathes are supported by dingy-looking 
cast-iron frames, and under each lathe there is a chest of 
drawers containing a set of tools. Overhead there is a 
wilderness of pulleys and shafting, which seems to the 
untrained eye to have very little relation to the machines 
below. The working parts of the lathes show burnished 
steel surfaces, which reflect coldly the glare of yellow 
sunlight flooding the room. If it were moonlight instead 
of sunlight one might summon the ghosts of those daring 
men who hundreds and thousands of years ago dreamed 
audaciously of the future of applied mechanics. Roger 
Bacon must have had a vision of the machine-tool shop 
when he said, " I will now mention some of the wonder- 
ful works of art and nature in which there is nothing of 
magic, and which magic could not perform. Instruments 
may be made by which the largest ships, with only one 
man guiding them, will be carried with greater velocity 
than if they were full of sailors; chariots may be con- 
structed that will move with Incredible rapidity without 
the help of animals ; a small instrument may be made to 
raise or depress the greatest weights ; an instrument may 
be fabricated by which one man may draw a thousand 
men to him by force and against their will ; as also ma- 
chines which will enable men to walk at the bottom of 
seas or rivers without danger." 

When steam is " turned on " the aspect of the Machine- 
tool Laboratory is completely changed. Steam is, indeed, 
the arch-revolutionist ; it breathes the breath of life into 
inanimate things — makes them think, speak, and act. The 
low hum of unused machinery first salutes the ear ; then 



THE MACHINE-TOOL LABORATORY. 99 

the students take their places. They are three years older 
than when we encountered them in the engine-room. 
They are from seventeen to twenty years of age. They 
are no longer boys ; they are young men — robust, hearty- 
looking young men. Their bearing is very resolute — re- 
markably resolute ; their attitude is erect. They are full- 
chested, muscular-armed, frank-faced young men. In the 
three years' course now drawing to a close they have 
learned how to do many things, and hence they show a 
good degree of confidence. But the dominant expression 
on all the interesting young faces is, after all, one of mod- 
esty ; so true is it that every acquisition of knowledge, and 
especially useful knowledge, not only stimulates desire 
to learn more, but enlightens perception as to the mag- 
nitude of the field of further inquiry. As the addition 
of a useful thing to the world's stock of things creates a 
demand for a score more of useful things, so the addition 
of a fact to the student's stock of facts not only creates a 
desire for more facts, but strengthens the mind for 
further investigation. 

It may be that there are vain statesmen, philosophers, 
priests, and kings, but we should as little expect to find 
a vain mechanic as a vain scientist. 

These twenty-four students may go out into the world 
to-morrow to make their way. Some of them will en- 
ter upon the stage of active life, others will continue 
their studies in higher schools of literature, science, and 
art ; but whether they go or stay, if they have made the 
most of their opportunities in the Manual Training School 
they will have learned the lesson of modesty, and learned 
to respect labor, not only as a means of earning one's 
daily bread, but as the most powerful and the most 
healthful mental and moral stimulant. 



100 MIND AND HAND. 

Steam is on, and the students standing at the lathes 
are impatient to begin. It is not a lesson in the ordi- 
nary sense. Each student works independently of special 
direction, for each is engaged in making a machine — the 
graduating project. The instructor is at hand, not to 
dictate bnt to advise, if requested. From his fund of 
experience as the elder scholar he will answer questions 
propounded by his younger fellow-students. In front of 
the students, parts of the working drawings may be seen. 
It is plain that there is to be variety in the exhibit of 
"projects." There are several steam-engines, differing 
in model ; there is a steam-pump, a punching machine, 
a lathe, an electric machine, and a steam-hammer. 

At a sign work commences — a dozen varieties of work, 
emitting a dozen tones of buzzing and whizzing. The 
instructor's face lights up with a pleased expression as 
he notes the progress of the work. There is no sign 
of hesitation in the class ; no questions are asked ; the 
students seem to be driving straight to the mark. The 
instructor's heart swells with pride ; he can trust " his 
boys !" He has been regarding them with an expression 
of affection, but now his eyes wander — they have a far- 
away look. He no longer sees the students, he is look- 
ing beyond them. He drops into a reclining attitude, 
sighs, falls into a reverie, and dreams. In his dream he 
sees naked savages, emerging from caves, armed with 
clubs, pursuing animals. These are succeeded by men 
bearing rude stone implements — axes and hammers — 
and these in turn by men armed with bows and arrows, 
but half-clothed with skins of beasts, and crouching and 
shivering beneath the shelter of the branches of a tree 
pulled downward and secured by clods of earth. This 
picture disappears, and is replaced by a pastoral scene 



THE MACHINE-TOOL LABORATORY. 101 

— a vast plain covered with flocks and herds. In the 
foreground stands the shepherd, and in the distance his 
tent, consisting of skins of beasts stretched on poles, and in 
the tent door a woman sits pounding a fleece into felt. 
The shepherd, his flocks and herds, his tent, and the 
woman in the tent door, vanish like the mists of morn- 
ing, and where the shepherd was, the husbandman is seen 
harvesting the golden grain ; and in the shadow of the 
cottage which has replaced the tent a woman is grind- 
ing corn. The scene again changes— the plain has be- 
come the site of a great city. The city is protected by 
thick, high walls, surmounted with frowning battlements. 
Sentinels pace back and forth along the parapet. Huge 
helmets protect their heads, and their bodies are clothed 
in armor. Quivers full of bronze-tipped arrows depend 
from their shoulders; in their hands they carry long 
bows, and the clank, clank of their broad, two-edged, 
bronze swords breaks the dull, monotonous routine of 
their march. A brazen gate swings back noiselessly on 
brazen hinges, and, bowing to the sentinel, the dreamer as 
noiselessly glides into the city. Suddenly he feels the 
hot breath of the foundery furnace-fire, and is blinded by 
a glare of red light. Shading his eyes he sees dusky 
forms hurrying to and fro with ladles full of molten 
metal. Turning away he hears the heavy stroke of the 
sledge, and looking, beholds a dusty, smoky smithy. The 
stalwart smith drops the sledge at his side, rests one foot 
on the anvil-block, and wipes the sweat from his brow; 
the helper thrusts the cooling metal into the coals, bends 
to the bellows, and the forge-fire sings. At the sound of 
a bell the dreamer starts, the old Assyrian city falls into 
ruins, the ruins crumble into dust, and on this dust an- 
other city rises, flourishes, falls, and piles the dust of 



102 MIND AND HAND. 

its ruins. Over a waste of years — twenty centuries — the 
dreamer's thought flashes, and he stands in the presence 
of the Alexandrian mechanic-philosopher. He sees Hero 
in the public street, gazing abstractedly at his condensed- 
air fountain, and follows him into his shop or laboratory, 
and observes him curiously as he toys with the model of 
a queer little steam-engine. " This is the Iron Age, but 
in its infancy," he exclaims under his breath, as his eyes 
wander from a fine Damascus blade hanging against the 
wall to some poor hand-tools lying on the working-bench. 
" I will speak to this old man," he continues, " and ask 
him to step into my Machine-tool Laboratory, and see my 
boys make steam-engines ; it will be a revelation to him. 
Come, old friend — there — look!" And the dreamer 
looks. Does he see double? The laboratory is un- 
changed ; steam is still on ; the whir of machinery and 
the buzzing sound of steam-driven tools salute the ear, 
and the students are all busy at their benches finishing 
parts of ''projects" and adjusting them in their " places. 
But there are twenty-four other men — shades of men — in 
the laboratory. Most of them are old ; some are in work- 
ing clothes, others in full dress, wearing ribbons and or- 
ders of merit. Over each student one of these shades 
bends with an air of absorbing attention. The dreamer 
recognizes Papin, Fulton, Watt, and Stephenson shadow- 
ing the students engaged in the construction of engines. 
They beckon Hero, and he joins the group, threading his 
way timidly between the lines of lathes, and looking 
askance at the rapidly revolving wheels and flying belts. 
Over the shoulders of other students are seen the faces 
of Maudslay, Bramah, Clement, Roberts, Whitney, 'Na- 
smyth. Huntsman, Cort, Murray, Dudley, Yarranton, Roe- 
buck, and Whitworth, besides several unfamiliar faces. 



THE MACHINE-TOOL LABORATORY. 103 

Suddenly they all gather about a nearly completed proj- 
ect — a stationary engine. They witness the forcing 
home of the last screw ; they see the miniature machine 
made fast to the bench. Steam is let into the cylinders. 
The student's flushed face is in sharp contrast with the 
colorless faces of the group of old men by whom he is 
surrounded. The piston-rod moves languidly — the ma- 
chine trembles as if awaking from slumber, the shaft os- 
cillates slowly, then faster^ then regularly, like a strong 
pulse-beat. The project is a success — the first one com- 
pleted! The student's face turns pale — as pale as the 
white faces of the old men at his side. They open their 
lips as if to cheer him, but no sound escapes them. He 
breathes quick — almost gasps ; his heart beats loudly ; he 
tries to shout but cannot utter a word. At last lie claps 
his hands ! The instructor starts from his chair, rubs his 
eyes, and stares round the laboratory. All the students 
are there, gathered in a group about the finished " proj- 
ect," but the ghostly shades of the old inventors have 
vanished like the unsubstantial fabric of a vision. 

The " projects " are not all finished on the same day. 
Some of them are far more complicated than others, and 
some students are more skilled than others. All are very 
busy. It is not improper to ask questions relating to work 
on the graduating projects ; the instructor is at hand to 
answer such questions. But it is a point of honor not 
to ask a question if the difficulty can possibly be other- 
wise overcome. Hence very few questions are asked. 

The last week of the term is a very trying one to 
all concerned. The students are reticent and unusual- 
ly silent; all are anxious, some are timid — the nervous 
tension is extreme. The instructor becomes taciturn 
under a painful sense of compulsory isolation from his 



104 MIND AND HAND. 

class, towards all the members of which he has, for three 
years, sustained fraternal rather than dictatorial relations. 
But as the projects are, one by one, completed, the atnios- 
phere clears. When the student realizes that his project 
is certain to be a success, his face brightens and he is 
pleased to discuss its " points " with the instructor. The 
instructor is delighted to resume his former relations 
with the class, the feeling of constraint is dispelled, and 
the graduation-day exercises are contemplated with con- 
fidence. 



MANUAL AND MENTAL TKAINING C0MJ3INED. 105 



CHAPTER X. 

MANUAL AND MENTAL TRAINING COMBINED. 

The new Education is all-sided — its Effect. — A Harmonious Devel- 
opment of the Whole Being. — Examination for Admission to the 
Chicago School. — List of Questions in Arithmetic, Geography, and 
Language. — The Curriculum. — The Alternation of Manual and 
Mental Exercises. — The Demand for Scientific Education — its 
Effect. — Ambition to be useful. 

We have now passed in review all the school labora- 
tories, from the engine-room, or laboratory where power 
is generated, to the Machine-tool Laboratory where pow- 
er is utilized, or harnessed, and compelled to do the work 
of man. We have observed the student, in his first 
effort over the drawing-board, struggling laboriously to 
make a straight line, and in the Laboratory of Carpentry, 
trying with varying success to make a tenon fit the mor- 
tise, and we have stood by his side in the Machine-tool 
Laboratory in the moment of his triumph exhibiting his 
graduating "project" — a miniature engine throbbing un- 
der the ]3ressure of steam, and doing its work with ad- 
mirable precision. But we have seen only the manual 
side of the curriculum. The mental side is still to be 
shown. The claim made in behalf of the new education 
is that it is better balanced than the old, that it is all- 
sided, that it produces a harmonious development of the 
whole being, that it makes of the student a man fully 
furnished for the battle of life, mentally, morally, and 
physically. Accordingly the curriculum of the Manual 
Training School combines with the laboratory exercises 



10t> MIND AND HAND. 

a variety of mental exercises of quite a comprehensive 
eliaructer; and first, certain mental requirements are nec- 
essary to admission, as witness the following from the 
first catalogue of the Chicago Manual Training School: 

" Candidates for admission to the Junior year must be at 
least fourteen years of age, and must present sufficient 
evidence of good moral character. They must pass a 
satisfactory examination in reading, spelling, writing, ge- 
ography, English composition, and the fundamental oper- 
ations of arithmetic as applied to integers, common and 
decimal fractions, and denominate numbers. Ability to 
use the English language correctly is especially desired." 

The follow^ing questions were used at the first exami- 
ation for admission to the Chicago school. 

ARITHMETIC. 

Transcribe work sufficient to show processes. ]^o 
ci'edit given for results alone. 

1. Change to decimals and find the sum of f , f , ^l, ^q, |^. 

2. Divide the product of 28f and 13f by the difference of 8^^ 
and 4|. 

3. Divide .00875 by 12i 

4. Reduce .395 of a mile to integers. 

5. If a locomotive move f of a mile in {^ of an hour, vv^hat is its 
speed per hour? 

6. A man invested ^ of his money in land, .125 of it in stocks, 
$12,000 in a vessel, and had $55,500 remaining. How much did he 
invest in land? 

7. Bought a square mile of land at $75 an acre. I reserved 160 
acres of it for streets and alleys, and divided the remainder into lots 
each 66 feet front by 200 feet deep, all of which I sold for $15 per 
front foot. The expense of surveying, etc., was $2000. What did I 
gain ? 

8. How many balls, each ^ of an inch in diameter, are equal in 
weight to a ball of the same material 1 foot in diameter? 

9. Find cost of material for making box, inside measurement 4 by 



MANUAL AND MENTAL TRAINING COMBINED. 109 

2 by 3 feet, of inch lumber, worth $30 per M., ^V of the lumber pur- 
chased being wasted. Include in the cost 7 dozen screws at $L80 
per gross, 

10. What is the height of a rectangular cistern capable of contain- 
ing 600 gallons, the bottom of which is 7 by 11 feet, inside measure- 
ment? 

GEOGRAPHY. 

1. Name the five most populous cities of the United States in 
order of population. On what water is St. Petersburg? Dublin? 
Rome? Calcutta? Cairo? 

2. Locate the principal coal fields and iron regions of the United 
States. What minerals occur in Illinois? 

3. Draw map of Illinois, showing by what States and by what 
waters bounded. Locate the capital and the largest city of Illinois. 

4. Name the outlet of Lake Erie; of Lake Champlain; of Great 
Salt Lake ; of the Black Sea ; of Lake Victoria Nyanza. 

5. Compare the latitude and climate of Spain and Illinois. 

6. How does the island of Great Britain compare in area with the 
United States, or with any one of the United States which you may 
mention? 

7. How do the Alps compare in height with the Rocky Mount- 
ains? Name the highest peak in Europe; in North America; in 
South America; in the world. 

8. How does climate vary with altitude above the sea level? Il- 
lustrate by an example. 

9. What is the cause of day and night? Of changes of seasons? 
What is latitude? Longitude? 

10. When it is 11 a.m. by "Central Time "in Chicago, what is the 
hour by "Eastern Time "in New York City? What is the hour in 
London? Is " Central Time " in Chicago ^the true time? Why? 

Or, in place of the last question : What are the termini of the 
Illinois and Michigan Canal? What waters are connected by the 
Suez Canal? Of what water route does the Suez Canal take the 
place? 

LANGUAGE. 

1. Correct in every particular, and give reason for each correction: 
a. The man which was sick has went to his work, 
h. Every person should attend to their own' affairs. 
c. Such expressions sound harshly. 



110 MIND AND HAND. 

d. Between you and I, this is a real easy examination. 

e. The cause of the tides were not wholly unknown to the an- 
cients, 

2. ' ' Pleasantly rose next morning the sun on the village of Grand 
Pre." 

How is the idea of the rising of the sun modified? 

3. ' ' Flashed all their sabres bare, 

Flashed as they turned in air, 
Sab'ring the gunners there, 
Charging an army, while 

All the world wondered." 
Change to good prose. 

4. State the meaning of each prefix and suffix in the following 
words : Emigrate ; Immigrate ; Illegally ; "Admissible ; Thoughtless- 
ness; Affixing. 

5. a. Why is the final e of "service " retained in "serviceable?" 

b. Write the present participle of "befit;" of "benefit." 

What difference in spelling? Why? 

c. Define Ancient; Venerable; Obsolete. 

6. Write an essay on Chicago, mentioning the rapid growth of the 
city; its land and water communications; its commerce and manu- 
factures ; its public buildings ; its institutions of learning and charity, 
and any other items which may occur to you. 

Having passed the ordeal of the foregoing battery of 
questions the student of the Ideal School finds his mental 
exercises alternated with manual exercises throughout 
the entire course in something like the following order, 
namelj: 

Junior Year.— (1.) Mathematics.— hx\thmei\c\ Algebra. (2.) >S'de/?ce.— Physi- 
ology ; Physical Geography. (3.) ia^sg'Ma^e.— English Language and Literature ; or 
Latin Reader. (4.) Drawing .—Fv&ohaxidi Model and Object ; Projection ; Machine; 
Perspective. (5.) Shopwork.—C&T'^e.ntvj., Joinery, Wood-Turning, Pattern-Making, 
Proper Care and Use of Tools. 

Middle Year.— (1.) Mathematics. —Geometvj. (S.) Science.— 'Physics. (3.) Lan- 
gn age. —General History and Literature; or Caesar. (4.) Drawing.— Orthographic 
Projection and Shadows; Line and Brush Shading; Isometric Projection and Shad- 
ows; Details of Machinery; Machine from Measurement. (5.) Shopwork.— Mold- 
ing, Casting; Forging, Welding, Tempering; Soldering, Brazing. 

Senior Year. — (1.) Mathematics.— Vi&ne Trigonometry; Mechanics: Book- 
keeping, (2.) /Science.— Chemistry; or Descriptive Geometry and Higher Algebra. 



MANUAL AND x\ll^NTAL TRAINING COMBINED. m 

(3.) Language^ e/c— English Literature, Civil Government, Political Economy; or 
Cicero, or French. (4.) Z'ra^/^^?^(7.— Machine from Measurement ; Building from 
Measurement; Architectural Perspective. (.5.) J/ac/iine /67/o;>ttwA;.— Such as Chip- 
ping, Filing, Fitting, Turning, Drilling, Planing, etc. Study of Machinery, including 
the Management and Care of Steam Engines and Boilers. 

Latin and French may be taken instead of Eni^lish 
Language, Literature, and History. Instruction will be 
given each year in the properties of the materials — 
wood, iron, brass, etc. — used in that year. 

Throughout the course, one hour per day, or more, 
will be given to drawing, and not less than two hours 
per day to laboratory work. The remainder of the 
school day wall be devoted to study and recitation. Be- 
fore graduating, each pupil will be required to construct 
a machine from, drawings and patterns made by himself. 
A diploma will be given on graduation. 

The new education is a blending of manual and men- 
tal training. It recognizes the fact that science discov- 
ers and art utilizes, and that these two forces move the 
modern world. 

At present the Manual Training School is a missionary 
enterprise. Its purpose is to create in the public mind 
an imperative demand for the incorporation of its scien- 
tific methods into the public-school course of instruction. 

A vast majority of our people are employed in the 
useful arts, and distinction in every department of labor 
now depends upon scientific education. Without tech- 
nical education or manual training the laborer of the 
future cannot hope to rise above the grade of a piece of 
automatic machinery. He falls into the routine of the 
shop like a cog or lever moved by steam. To avert this 
dire misfortune our common schools must be made 
institutions for manual as well as intellectual trainin^r. 
They must inculcate the dignity of labor not by precept 



112 MIND AND HAND. 

merely, but by example. It is not enough that schools 
of technology, polytechnic institutes, and manual train- 
ing schools are being established here and there by pri- 
vate subscription. The supply of these classes of edu- 
cation is only a drop in the bucket to the public demand. 
Technical and manual training must be made part of the 
general public educational system. In our city high- 
schools we now fit boys for college. In those schools 
we mast hereafter fit them for the colleges of art. 
When this shall have become the fashion in education 
there will be thousands of high -school graduates with 
a grand passion for mechanical pursuits — boys with 
more curiosity on the subject of the expansive force of 
steam than on the subject of " Greek roots ;" with more 
ambition to invent something useful to man than to learn 
how to draw a bill in chancery ; witli a stronger desire 
to discover a new secret in electricity than to carry off a 
prize for the best Latin oration. 



I 



THE INTELLECTUAL EFFECT OF MANUAL TRAINING. 113 



CHAPTER XI. 

THE INTELLECTUAL EFFECT OF MANUAL TRAINING. 

Intelligence is the Basis of Character. — The more Practical the In- 
telligence the Higher the Development of Character. — The use of 
Tools quickens the Intellect. — Making Things rouses the Attention, 
sharpens the Observation, and steadies the Judgment. — History 
of Inventions in England, 1740-1840.— Poor, Ignorant Apprentices 
become learned Men. — Cort, Huntsman, Mushet, Neilson, Ste- 
phenson, and Watt.— The Union of Books and Tools. — Results at 
Rotterdam, Holland ; at Moscow, Russia ; at Komotau, Bohemia ; 
and at St. Louis, Mo. — The Consideration of Overwhelming Import. 

The quality of all civilizations depends upon intelli- 
gence and character, or morality, in the order stated ; for 
morality springs from intelligence, not intelligence from 
morality. This is an axiomatic deduction of historic 
analysis.* ]^or would it be difficult to prove that prao- 

* "But if we contrast this stationary aspect of moral truths with 
the progressive aspect of intellectual truths, the difference is, indeed, 
startling. . . . These are to every educated man recognized and no- 
torious facts, and the inference to be drawn from them is immedi- 
ately obvious. Since civilization is the product of moral and intel- 
lectual agencies, and since that product is constantly changing, it 
evidently cannot be regulated by the stationary agent; because when 
surrounding circumstances are unchanged, a stationary agent can 
only produce a stationary effect. The only other agent is the intel- 
lectual one, and that this is the real mover may be proved in two 
distinct w^ays : first, because being, as we have already seen, either 
moral or intellectual, and being, as we have also seen, not moral, it 
must be intellectual ; and secondly, because the intellectual principle 
has an activity and a capacity for adaptation which, as I undertake 
lo show, is quite sutficient to account for the extraordinary progress 



114 MIND A^D HAND. 

tical intelligence is more conducive to a higli develop- 
ment of morals than mere theoretical intelligence. For 
is it not true that the nations most skilled in the useful 
arts are most highly cultured in morals? And if it be 
true, it constitutes a potential argument in support of 
joining to intellectual instruction in the schools a course 
of training in the elements of the useful arts. And of 
the fact which forms the basis of this argument there is 
a logical explanation. 

[N'othing stimulates and quickens the intellect more 
than the use of mechanical tools. The boy who begins 
to construct things is compelled at once to begin to think, 
deliberate, reason, and conclude. As he proceeds he is 
brought in contact with powerful natural forces. If he 
would control, direct, and apply these forces he must 
•first master the laws by which they are governed ; he 
must investigate the causes of the phenomena of jnatter, 
and it will be strange if from this he is not also led to a 
study of the phenomena of mind. At the very threshold 
of practical mechanics a thirst for wisdom is engendered, 
and the student is irresistibly impelled to investigate the 
mysteries of philosophy. Thus the training of the eye 
and the hand reacts upon the brain, stimulating it to ex- 
cursions into the realm of scientific discovery in search 
of facts to be applied in practical forms at the bench and 
the anvil. 

The history of invention and discovery in England af- 
fords a striking confirmation of the truth of the propo- 
sition that mechanical investigation, with tools in hand, 
stimulates the intellectual faculties to the highest point 

that, during several centuries, Europe has continued to make." — 
Buckle's "History of Civilization," Vol. I., p. 130. D. Appleton & 
Co., 1864. 



THP: intellectual effect of manual training. 115 

of activity and excellence. The germs of nearly all the 
great inventions in mechanics, the benefit of which the 
vrorld is now enjoying in such ample measure, are direct- 
ly traceable to the workshops of Great Britain during 
the period 1740-1840. 

England had then no popular system of education, and 
the apprentices in her shops were poor, obscure, and, at 
the start, illiterate. But to those poor apprentices the 
honor of the great inventions and discoveries of that age 
is almost wholly due. And it is a notable fact that in 
the struggle to invent tools and machines, to master the 
art of mechanism, to steal from E'ature her secret forces, 
and harness and use them for the benefit of man, the 
toiling workers not infrequently became highly edncatecl, 
intellectual giants, familiar not alone with special studies, 
but masters of many branches of learning. 

In 1770 the Kussian GTovernment, aware of the inferi- 
ority of English iron, and deeming Eussian iron essential 
to England, directed the price of iron for export to be 
raised three hundred per cent. This arbitrary act stim- 
ulated invention. Henry Cort, the son of a brick-maker, 
entered upon a series of experiments, with a view to the 
improvement of English iron. They occupied several 
years, and were of a very expensive character— so expen- 
sive as eventually to bankrupt the man who made them. 
They were, however, so successful as to constitute a splen- 
did epoch in the history of metallurgy. In 1786 Lord 
Sheffield declared that Cort's improvements in iron, and 
the steam-engine of Watt, were of more value to Great 
Britain than the thirteen colonies of America; and in 
1862 it was estimated that those improvements had added 
three thousand million dollars to the wealth of England 
alone, to say nothing of the rest of the world of iron 



116 MIND AND HAND. 

manufacture throughout which they had been applied. 
But the only estate secured by this great man as a re- 
ward of his genius and a life of toil, as his biographer 
patlietically remarks, was " the little domain of six feet 
by two in which he lies buried in Hampstead church- 
yard." 

In 1715 Sheffield contained two thousand inhabitants, 
of whom one-third were beggars. Its manufactures con- 
sisted of jews -harps, tobacco-boxes, and knives. Shef- 
field is now the chief seat of the steel manufacture of 
the world. The initial step in this great transformation 
scene was taken by Benjamin Huntsman. He was born 
in 1704, and bred to a mechanical calling. The early 
years of his life were spent in the occupation of clock 
making and repairing. He was shrewd, observant, and 
practical, and he gradually extended the scope of his 
profession to repairing, and finally to making hand-tools. 
In this branch of his trade he detected defects in the 
German steel in common use. He rem.oved from Don- 
caster to Sheffield, and there in the privacy of his cottage 
studied metallurgy, and for years labored in secret over 
the furnace and the crucible. His numerous failures 
were subsequently found chronicled in masses of metal, 
in various stages of imperfection, buried in the earth. 
But when he emerged from his long seclusion he offered 
to his fellow-mechanics a piece of cast-steel so hard that 
they declined to work it. He sent the product of his 
works to France, and the French knives and razors made 
from it and imported into England drove the Sheffield 
cutlery from the market. Then the Sheffield cutlers 
sought to have the export of steel prohibited. Failing 
in that they stole Huntsman's secret. This was possible, 
since the process had not been patented. The story of 



THE INTELLECTUAL EFFECT OF MANUAL TRAINING, n; 

the theft is told in a little work entitled " The Useful 
Metals and their Alloys.". It is in substance that one 
Walker, an iron-founder, " disguised himself as a tramj), 
and feigning great distress and abject poverty, appeared 
shivering at the door of Huntsman's foundery late one 
night when the workmen w^ere about to begin their la- 
bors at steel-casting, and asked for permission to warm 
himself by the furnace-fire." He was permitted to enter, 
and when he left he carried away the secret of the in- 
ventor of cast-steel. 

Huntsman was a member of the Society of Friends, 
and it was doubtless on that account that he declined a 
membership of the Eoyal Society tendered to him in 
honor of his great discovery or invention of cast-steel. 

David Mushet's discovery of the extraordinary value 
of black-band iron-stone in 1801 made Scotland a first- 
class iron-producing country; and JSTeilson's invention of 
the hot-blast in 1828 revolutionized the processes of iron 
manufacture by vastly cheapening them. Both these 
men sprang from the labor class, and both were self- 
educated. Through almost superhuman efforts they rose 
from poverty and obscurity to fame. Mushet's "Pa- 
pers on Iron and Steel," in the language of Smiles, " are 
among the most valuable original contributions to the 
literature of iron manufacture that have yet been given 
to the world ;" and E'eilson was made a member of the 
Royal Society in recognition of hi's distinguished ability 
and the great services he rendered in the cause of the 
useful arts. 

George Stephenson rose from the coal-mine to the 
summit of renown as a theoretical and practical mechan- 
ic. While employed in various collieries as " fireman " 
and " plugman," he acquired a thorough knowledge of 



118 MIND AND HAND. 

the engines then in use, taking them apart, repairing, and 
putting them together again. At eighteen years of age 
he could not read. In the course of two years attend- 
ance at night-schools he learned to read, write, and ci- 
pher.^ Continuing to work in collieries, he employed his 
leisure hours in studying mechanics and engineering, and 
in mending clocks and shoes. When thirty-one years of 
age he w^as appointed " enginewright " at Killingworth 
Colliery, at a salary of £100 a year. From this point of 
time dates his career as an inventor. His first locomo- 
tive was completed in 1814, and the "Rocket" made 
its trial trip in 1829. During the intervening fifteen 
years Stephenson was largely engaged in the engineering 
department of railway enterprises as well as in the pros- 
ecution of experiments for the perfecting of locomotive 
engines. The most eminent engineers of the time doubt- 
ed the practicability of the locomotive, and continued 
to recommend stationary engines, while Stephenson was 
leading up to the "Rocket." The success of the "Rock- 
et" made its inventor the most famous mechanic in the 
world. For the next fifteen years he was the leading 
spirit in all the great railway enterprises of England, be- 



* " In conclusion, we are of opinion that special instruction which 
can be applied to the material would be at once more fruitful in good 
results and more attractive if the pupil could go from the class-room 
to the workshop (laboratory) to practically demonstrate the theories 
to which he has just been listening. In support of this opinion we 
might add th6 observations made in our own evening-schools, where 
the most noteworthy and rapid progress is made in those cases where 
the pupil has occasion to put into actual practice on the material 
itself the instruction which he has received in the drawing-class." — 
' ' Report of Committee of Council of Arts and Manufactures of the 
Province of Quebec, created to Inquire into the Question of Practical 
Schools." 



THE INTELLECTUAL EFFECT OF MANUAL TRAINING. 119 

sides being called repeatedly to Belgium and Spain as 
consulting engineer. He was offered a fellowship of the 
Royal Society, also one in the Civil Engineers' Society, 
also knighthood by Sir Robert Peel. All these empty 
honors he declined. " I have to state," he said, in reply 
to a request for his " ornamental initials," " that I have 
no flourishes to my name, either before or after, and 1 
think it will be as well if you merely say George Ste- 
phenson." He may justly be styled the founder of the 
existing railway system of the world, which undoubtedly 
exerts more influence upon civilization than any other 
one cause or set of allied causes ; and to have risen from 
the humblest station in a colliery to the dignity of found- 
ing such a system is sufficient evidence of a gigantic in- 
tellectual growth. 

James Watt was an extremely fragile child, and hence 
unable to join in the rude sports of robust children. Thus 
confined within-doors he early amused himself by draw- 
ing '' with a pencil upon paper, or with chalk upon the 
floor." He was also supplied with a few tools from his 
father's carpenter's shop, " which he soon learned to han- 
dle with considerable expertness." Mr. Smiles, in his 
biography of Watt, says, " The mechanical dexterity he 
acquired was the foundation upon which he built the 
speculations to which he owes his glory, nor without this 
manual training is there the least likelihood that he would 
have become the improver and almost the creator of the 
steam-engine."^ In the parrot-power of learning or mem- 



* " I believe that well-advised practice in any of the constructive 
arts involving not more than one-third of the student's time will yield 
as much mental improvement as will result if the whole time be de- 
voted to study from text-books." — Prof, Wm. F. M. Goss, six years 



120 MIND AND HAND. 

orizing Watt was a dull boy, and he left the grammar- 
school of his native town at an early age, never to return 
to the " halls of learning." But while engaged in humble 
mechanical employments he perfected his education, study- 
ing after work-hours. He nearly starved his body, but con- 
stantly added to his intellectual stores. He mastered the 
principles of engineering, civil and military, studied natu- 
ral history, criticism, art, and acquired several modern lan- 
guages. In a word, without the aid of the schools, but 
under the stimulating influence of mechanical investiga- 
tion and w^ork, Watt became an accomplished and scien- 
tific man. When nearly eighty years of age he and Sir 
Walter Scott met. Referring to the occasion, and speak- 
ing of Watt, Sir Walter is reported to have said, " The 
alert, kind, benevolent old man had his attention alive to 
every one's question, his information at every one's com- 
mand. His talents and fancy overflowed on every subject. 
One gentleman was a deep philologist — he talked with 
him on the origin of the alphabet as if he had been 
coeval with Cadmus ; another a celebrated critic — you 
w^ould have said the old man had studied political econ- 
omy and belles-lettres all his life ; of science it is un- 
necessary to speak — it was his distinguished walk." 
Tliese examples of remarkable intellectual development 

Director of the Department of Practical Mechanics of Purdue Uni- 
versity. 

"And reflect that he will learn more by one hour of manual labor 
than he will retain from a whole day's verbal instructions." — "The 
Emilius and Sophia"' of J. J. Rousseau, Yol. II., p. 64. London: 
1767. 

"The things themselves are the best explanations. I can never 
enough repeat it, that we make words of too much consequence ; 
with our prating modes of education we make nothing but praters," 
—Ibid., p. 46. 



THE INTELLECTUAL EFFECT OF MANUAL TRAINING. 121 

in connection with tool - practice are not plienomenal. 
From the annals of invention and discovery numerous 
instances might be cited in support of the proposition 
of this chapter, that tool-practice stimulates intellectual 
growth. 

In the Artisan's School at Rotterdam, Holland, an ex- 
perience of seven years has demonstrated that " boys who 
are occupied one-half the day with books in the school, 
and the remaining half with tools in the laboratories, 
make about as rapid intellectual progress as those of equal 
ability who spend the whole day in study and recitation." 
The testimony of Dr. Woodward, director of the St. Louis 
(Mo.) Manual Training School, is to the same effect. And 
in one of his reports he says, " Success in drawing or shop- 
work has often had the effect of arousing the ambition 
in mathematics and history, and vice versa. . . . The habit 
of working from drawings and to nice measurements has 
given the students a confidence in themselves altogether 
new. This is shown in the readiness with w^hich they 
undertake the execution of small commissions in behalf 
of the school. ... In fact, the increased usefulness of our 
students is making itself felt, and in several instances the 
result has been the offer of business positions too tempt- 
ing to be rejected." 

Of the results achieved by the Imperial Technical 
School, Moscow, Russia, M. Victor Delia -Yos, director, 
speaks with the utmost confidence. He says, " And now 
(1878) w^e present our system of instruction, not as a 
project, but as an accomplished fact, confirmed by the 
long experience of ten years of success in its results." 
The methods of instruction of the school at Moscow 
were introduced into all the technical schools of Bussia 
in 1$70, 



122 MIND AND HAND. 

A similar degree of success has attended tlie Koyal 
Mechanic Art School at Komotan, Bohemia. The man- 
agement says, " The school has shown the most brilliant 
proofs of usefrdness, and the ends gained have been ac- 
knowledged at home and abroad. One proof is that in 
spite of the hard times all the pnpils from Komotau 
have found occupation in different manufacturing estab- 
lishments; and another that England, a country unsur- 
passed in the manufactures of iron and steel, has already 
sent some students to the school." 

If the pupil in the Manual Training School makes as 
rapid progress intellectually as the pupil in the public or 
private school of corresponding grade, it follows that 
whatever skill in the use of tools is acquired, and what- 
ever knowledge of practical mechanics is gained — these 
stand for the net gain of the pupil of the new sys- 
tem of education. But much more follows by implica- 
tion. For if the few pupils of the world's few manual 
training schools are making equal intellectual progress 
with the many pupils of the many schools of the old re- 
gime^ and making such progress in a little more than half 
the study-hours, the consideration of overwhelming im- 
port is the loss sustained by the millions of pupils being 
trained under the old system. 



THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN A NECESSITY. 123 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN A NECESSITY, 

The Difference between Ancient and Modern Systems of Education. 
— Plato Blinded by Half-truths. — No place in the present order of 
things for Dogmatisms. — Education commences at Birth. — The In- 
fluence of Woman extends from the Cradle to the Grave. — The 
Crime of Crimes— Neglect to educate Woman. — The Superiority 
of Women over Men as Teachers — Froebel discovered it. — Nature 
designed Woman to Teach ; hence the Importance of Fitting her 
for her Highest Destiny. 

This, from the lips of Plato, was the theory of the 
ancients : " The earth is the common mother of the hu- 
man race, but it has pleased the gods to mix gold in the 
composition of some, silver in that of others, iron and 
copper in that of others."* On this divinely established 
principle of caste all the ancient educational systems were 
founded. They were limited to the development of the 
few in whose composition gold was supposed to be mixed. 

The idea of a universal education is modern, and all 
other differences between the ancients and moderns com- 
bined are as nothing to this one fundamental difference 
between the two civilizations. Plato's ideal republic was 
based upon the assumption that the "guardians" might 
be made just and wise by educating them ; but that tlie 
other classes might also be made just and wise by educa- 

* "The Republic of Plato," p. 114. London: Macmillan & Co., 
1881. 



124 MIND AND HAND. 

tion, and the State be so rendered absolutely secure, did 
not occur to the great philosopher. 

Plato was blinded by half-truths, as Eousseau was two 
thousand years later, when he said, " The poor stand in 
no need of education ; that of their station is confined, 
and they cannot obtain any other."^ That men are cre- 
ated unequal intellectually is only a half-truth in an edu- 
cational view ; the whole truth is that every child is sus- 
ceptible of the developing influence of education, and 
hence the obligation of the State to educate relates to all 
children. Plato's simile of the gold, the silver, and the 
iron shows how autocratically even the greatest mind is 
controlled by its environment, and limited by the facts 
which constitute the basis of its generalizations. Were 
Plato teaching here, now, he would transpose the order of 
statement in his simile, since iron, not gold, is the king 
of metals. Each generation increases the world's stock 
of facts ; hence there is no place in the modern order of 
things for the dogmatist — the dogmatisms of yesterday 
become apt themes for the satires of to-day, subjecting 
their authors to ridicule. This fact should impress upon 
professional teachers, and upon all persons engaged in 
seeking to promote the cause of education, the import- 
ance of a reverently studious habit of mind touching the 
progress of events. The tyranny of tradition is an ever- 
present, potent influence, and only the growing mind can 
resist it. 

But there are certain principles upon w^hich not only 
ancient and modern educators agree, but about which 
there is no dispute between existing rival schools, as, for 
example, this proposition of Plato — 

* "Emilius and Sophia," Vol. L, p. 40. London: 1767. 



THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN A NECESSITY. 125 

" The beginning is the most important part, especially 
in dealing with anything young and tender, for that is 
the time when any impression which one may desire to 
communicate is most readily stamped and taken."* 

And this proposition of Rousseau — 

" The education of a man commences at his birth ; be- 
fore he can speak, before he can understand, he is already 
instructed. . . . Trace the progress of the most ignorant of 
mortals from his birth to the present hour and you will 
be astonished at the knowledge he has acquired. "f 

And this further proposition, also of Rousseau — 

" The common profession of all men is humanity ; and 
whoever is well educated to discharge the duties of a 
man cannot be badly prepared to fill up any of those 
offices that have a relation to him.":j: 

The truth of these propositions being admitted, some 
conception may be formed of the tremendous influence 
exerted by woman upon the destinies of the human race. 
It extends literally from the cradle to the grave. All 
other influences combined are less potent, less compre- 
hensive than this single, persistent force that creates the 
very atmosphere in which the infant mind develops, 
holding the ground alone and undisturbed until the 
child's plastic character has been formed, receiving in- 
eradicable impressions. What a crime, then, was the neg- 
lect of the people of past ages to educate woman ! It 
is in vain that the education of man is attempted if that 
of woman is neglected. It was Rousseau who in despair 
exclaimed : 

* "The Republic of Plato," p. 65. London: Macmillan & Co., 
1881. 
f '• Emilius and Sophia," Vol. I., p. 54. London : 1767. 
t Ibid., Vol. L,p 13. 



126 MIND AND HAND. 

"How can a child be properly educated by one who 
has not been properly educated himself ?" 

Since, therefore, the education of the man begins while 
he lies helpless in his" mother's arms, and since the first 
steps in this direction are the most important, and since 
some sort of education proceeds with almost inconceiv- 
able rapidity through all the early years of life, it fol- 
lows that the kindergarten fills a place in the educational 
field entirely unoccupied until the time of Froebel. He 
first applied the ideas of Rousseau to school life. But 
when the kindergarten receives the child, three or four of 
the most precious educational years have already passed 
away, and at the still tender age of seven the child is 
surrendered to a very different system of training. The 
kindergarten is therefore only a brief episode in the edu- 
cational period of the child's life. But if it be the true 
education, it is susceptible of universal application.. 
Throughout all nature the order of development is con- 
stant and harmonious, and the child -nature cannot in 
reason constitute an exception to this rule. Froebel said, 
" The end and aim of all our work should be the har- 
monious growth of the whole being." If his principle is 
the true one, his method is susceptible of such modifica- 
tion and expansion as to render it applicable to the whole 
educational period. All mothers should therefore be 
trained in the principles and methods of the new edu- 
cation — the kindergarten system should prevail in all 
schools, and the kindergarten curriculum should be ex- 
tended and adapted to all ages and grades of pupils. 

Several great minds, separated by considerable inter- 
vals of time, have united in condemning the old systems 
of education — Bacon, Comenius, Rousseau, Pestalozzi, 
and Froebel. Bacon, himself a university man, said, 



THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN A NECESSITY. 127 

'' They learn notliing at the universities but to believe ;" 
and he proposed that a college be appropriated to tlie 
discovery of new truth, " to mix like a living spring with 
the stagnant waters." Three of these great men — Co- 
menius, Pestalozzi, and Froebel — were professional teach- 
ers. Theoretically they were in accord with and follow- 
ers of Bacon, and in practice they were substantially 
agreed. Comenius said, " Let things that have to be done 
be learned by doing them." Pestalozzi said, " Education 
is the generation of power," and Froebel said, " The end 
and aim of all our work should be the harmonious growth 
of the whole being." 

These are very high authorities, and they are buttressed 
by seemingly impregnable educational propositions. The 
record of Froebel's life is worthy of great weight in sup- 
port of his theory. His devotion to the cause of educa- 
tion was absolute. He never knew a selfish aim. He 
struggled for the race, not for self. He was the victim 
of many misfortunes, but none disturbed the serenity of 
this great soul devoted to the greatest of great causes— 
the cause of education. And education to his apprehen- 
sion was the thorough training of every faculty of the 
mind and every power of the body for the duties of act- 
ual practical life. His love embraced the world in its 
entirety and in all its parts. Dying, he said, " I love 
flowers, men, children, God ! I love everything !" It 
was his profoundly philosophic conception of the innate 
lovableness of every natural object that made him shud- 
der at the cruel distortion wrought in the natures of 
little children by false methods of education. Hence 
his intense devotion to the subject of infant training, and 
hence the excellence of the system which bears his name. 

Froebel's most subtile discovery was the fact of the 



128 MIND AND HAND. 

superiority of women over men, as teachers. Only an 
lionest, brave soul could have made this discovery, for 
tradition stood like a lion in the way, and prejudice dis- 
couraged investigation. But Froebel sought truth for 
truth's sake, fearlessly defying tradition and ignoring 
prejudice; and years of experiment convinced him that 
the greatest measure of success in infant training was 
surely attainable through women. That this discovery, 
so simple, yet so big with grand possibilities, was not made 
earlier is due to the fact that there is so little really 
independent thought, so little investigation free from 
the trammels of prejudice. Now that a great mind has 
pointed the way it is obvious that Nature, having design- 
ed that the years of early childhood should be spent 
with the mother, must have also designed that women 
should be the chief educators of children. And it fol- 
lows, of course, that the education of women is more 
important than that of men, since it is from them that 
children receive their first impressions, and since first 
impressions are indelibly stamped upon the infant mind, 
giving it form, color, and substance. 

In confiding to women this great trust, Froebel imposed 
upon them an incalculable weight of responsibility. It 
comprehends the destiny of the human race, involving 
the problem of its progress or retrogression. 

A common first conception of the kindergarten is — 
a convenient asylum for the children of mothers who 
desire to be relieved of their care. A more thoughtful 
study reveals its poetry and sentiment, the innocent joy 
of the assembly of pupils, the harmony of song, and the 
grace of motion in the games and dances. A final, large 
view discloses the true educational principle. The kin- 
dergarten is more clearly comprehended after studying 



THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN A NECESSITY. 129 

the manual training school — moving from the effect to 
the cause ; for as the child is father of the man, so the 
kindergarten is father of the manual training school., 
The kindergarten comes first in the order of develop- 
ment, and leads logically to the manual training school. 
The same principle underlies both. In both it is sought 
to generate power by dealing with actualities. The 
corner-stone of both is object-teaching — teaching through 
things instead of through signs of things. This princi- 
ple, common to both, is the concrete as opposed to the 
abstract. The theory of both is that, in teaching, ideas 
should never be isolated from the objects they represent.' 
The kindergarten and the manual training school, being 
one in principle, should have common methods of in- 
struction, varied sufficiently to adapt them to the whole 
range of school life. 

1 " This method of object teaching is perhaps the g-reatest service 
which the naturalistic school has rendered lo the cause of education. 
Hinted at by Rabelais and Locke, still more largely developed by 
Rousseau, it has received, in the last century, a more accurate and 
scientific form, and is probably destined lo become the source of a 
new curriculum in which literature will only hold a secondary place." 
— "Educational Theories," p. 109. By Oscar Browning, M.A. 
New York: Harper & Brothers, 1885. 



130 MIND AND HAND. 



CHAPTER XIII. , 

THE MORAL EFFECT OF MANUAL TRAINING. 

Mental Impulses are often Vicious ; but the Exertion of Physical 
Power in the Arts is always Beneficent — hence Manual Training 
tends to correct vicious mental Impulses. — Every mental Impres- 
sion produces a moral Effect. — All Training is Moral as well as 
Mental. — Selfishness is total Depravity; but Selfishness has been 
Deified under the name of Prudence.— Napoleon an Example of 
Selfishness. — The End of Selfishness is Disaster; but Prevailing 
Systems of Education promote Selfishness.— The Modern City an 
Illustration of Selfishness. — The Ancient City. — Existing Systems 
of Education Negatively Wrong.— Manual Training supplies the 
■lacking Element. — The Objective must take the Place of the Sub- 
jective in Education. — Words without Acts are as dead as Faith 
without Works. 

Education, or training, has two immediate and contin- 
uous effects — the development of innate mental qualities 
or aptitudes and the formation of character. In an or- 
derly logical system of training the development would 
be harmonious, and the resulting formation of character 
symmetrical. These are, however, ideal conditions re- 
quiring a perfect system of training, and students free 
from the perversions and deformities growing out of 
the law of heredity. But under any system of training 
there is progress — development and character formation. 
The aphorism, " An idle brain is the devil's workshop," 
expresses only a half-truth. What it means is this : if 
the mind is not well employed it will be ill employed; or 
if it is not occupied with good thoughts it will be occu- 
pied with evil thoughts. The mind of man is never at 



THE MORAL EFFECT OF MANUAL TRAINING. 131 

rest, in equilibrium, even in a state of barbariom. In- 
deed this is obvious, since all civilizations are growths 
from states of savagery. But the barbaric line once pass- 
ed, development is greatly accelerated, assuming with the 
evolution of the ages the form of a geometrical progres- 
sion. The distinguishing characteristic of modern civil illa- 
tion is action. In so far as this action, which may be called 
the impulsive force of the spirit of the age, is natural and 
orderly, it constitutes an aid to the processes of educa- 
tion ; if otherwise, it is obstructive, hindering them. 

The law of mental development is not the exact cor- 
relative of the law of physical development. The direct 
aim of physical training is muscular power; of mental 
training the aim is mental power and rectitude. Physi- 
cal power is not intrinsically vicious ; it becomes vicious 
only when exerted under a vicious intellectual impulse. 
But this is not necessarily true of mental power; for 
mental power may be gained quite apart from the ele- 
ment of rectitude, in which event it is vicious, and may 
be exerted in scorn of the accepted standards of right, 
truth, and justice. As a matter of fact it is often so ex- 
erted, and the fact that it is so exerted accounts for the 
crimes of individuals, the faults of society, and the errors 
of governments. The constitution of mental power is, 
then, complex, while that of physical power is simple. If 
mental power consists of sense perception, or understand- 
ing, and moral perception, or rectitude, in due proportion, 
the issue is a noble character: but if rectitude is wanting, 
the issue is an evil character. If, on the other hand, there 
is ao interference with the orderly development of phys- 
ical power, the issue of its exertion is always skill — skill 
applied in innumerable forms to the uses of man. Only 
through a mental impulse rendered vicious by the ab- 

6^ 



132 MIND AND HAND. 

sence of the element of rectitude can physical power be 
diverted from its naturally beneficent mission. 

It follows that most of the evils of civilization flow 
from an ill-balanced mental constitution — a mental consti- 
tution wanting the essential element of rectitude. Since, 
then, mental development, under certain widely prevail- 
ing conditions, is so prolific of evil, and physical devel- 
opment or skill so universally prolific of good, it is ob- 
vious that the beneficent influence of the latter should, 
if practicable, be brought to bear upon the former in ed- 
ucational systems. In a word, may not the two systems 
of training be so connected in the schools as to cause 
the manual to react upon the mental, with the effect of 
greatly stimulating the ethical side of the mind? 

It is not essential to our purpose to inquire whether a 
perfect system of education, and hence an ideal state of 
society, is possible. It will be sufiicient if we are able to 
show wherein pervailing systems of education can be im- 
proved. 

In a former chapter we sought to show that the use of 
mechanical tools stimulates the intellect ; in the present 
chapter it is our purpose to endeavor to show that man- 
ual training tends to the promotion of rectitude, to the 
up-building of character. 

For purposes of culture the mind consists of divisions, 
as the body consists of members. It is susceptible oi 
development in the line of the application of mental 
training, as any member of the body is susceptible of de- 
velojDuient through physical training or use. For exam- 
ple, the memory may be invigorated by the constant ap- 
plication of certain kinds of mental training, as the arm 
is strengthened by the constant use of the sledge-hammer. 
But if the mental training which stimulates the memory 



THE MORAL EFFECT OF MANUAL TRAINING. 138 

is applied to the neglect of other lines of training, the 
memory will be strengthened at the expense of some other 
faculty of the mind, as the excessive use of the sledge- 
hammer strengthens the arm at the cost of other members 
of the body. In tlie one case the mind, and in the other 
the bodj will be deformed. In the case of the sledge- 
hammer training the muscles of the arm will stand out 
like whip-cords, while those of the legs will shrivel and 
become attenuated. In the case of the training of the 
memory that faculty will show an abnormal develop- 
ment, w^hile some other faculty, as the power of ratioci- 
nation, probably, will become weak. 

It is not necessary in this connection to inquire into 
the origin of moral sentiments, or to consider the rival 
theories on the subject. However men may differ as 
between the two schools of moral philosophers — the 
sentimentalists and the utilitarians — they will agree that 
the moral side of the mind, so to speak, consists of divi- 
sions like the mental side ; that these divisions are the 
source, respectively, of good and evil tendencies, and that 
these tendencies are susceptible of cultivation; that the 
evil may be restrained and the good developed, and vice 
versa. ]^or w411 it be disputed that there is such a 
blending of the moral with the mental nature in the 
mind of man as to render any consideration of the sub- 
ject irrational and incomplete which does not compre- 
hend both, and treat them, practically, as one and the 
same. Man is so constituted, and his relations to society 
are such, that every mental impression he receives pro- 
duces a moral effect, the character of which is, of course, 
largely dependent upon the accepted standards of right, 
truth, and justice. Hence all scholastic training is both 
mental and moral. It is moral as well as mental, whether 



134 MIND AND HAND. 

the instructor will it so or not; and that it is moral is 
well, since it is obviously true, as Galton pertinently re- 
marks, that " Great men have usually high moral nat- 
ures, and are affectionate and reverential, inasmuch as 
mere brain without heart is insufficient to achieve emi- 
nence." 

Selfishness is the arch enemy of virtue ; from it all 
forms of immorality spring, and its last analysis is total 
depravity. But literature, which is the fruitage of edu- 
cation, is full of maxims in honor of selfishness. Said the 
Dauphin to the French king, " Self-love, my liege, is not 
so vile a sin as self-neglecting." Said Herbert, " Help 
thyself and God will help thee." " A penny saved is as 
good as a penny earned," said Franklin ; and the grasp- 
ing "Yankee" stretches the maxim a point in saying to 
his son, "Make money honestly if you can, but 'make 
money." 

The following, also, are current maxims : " Every man 
is the architect of his own fortune;" "Every tub must 
stand upon its own bottom ;" "In the race of life the 
devil takes the hindmost ;" " Look to the main chance ;" 
and, " Keep what you have got, and catcli what you can." 
To the same purpose is the famous old aphorism of which 
Napoleon the First was so fond, "God always favors the 
heaviest battalions." Emerson declared that Napoleon 
represented " the spirit of modern commerce, of money, 
and material power," and he certainly was the very in- 
carnation of selfishness.* He had a hand of iron, and he 

* " ' God has granted,' says the Koran, ' to every people a prophet 
in its own tongue.' Paris, and London, and New York, the spirit of 
commerce, of money, and material power, were also to have their 
prophet ; and Bonaparte was qualified and sent. Every one of the 
million readers of anecdotes, or memoirs, or lives of Napoleon de- 



THE -MORAL EFFECT OF MANUAL TRAINING. 135 

laid it heavily on all who opposed him. If it became 
necessary to imprison his enemies he imprisoned them ; 
if it became necessary tc kill them he cut off their heads. 
When charged with the commission of great crimes, he 
retorted, " Men of my stamp do not commit crimes !" 
" I have always marched with the opinion of great masses 
and events," he exclaimed, with the insolence of a butcher 
exhibiting his bloody hands. Old-fashioned codes of 
morals were for those who opposed his plans, not for 
him. But the end of selfishness is disaster. It is as 
dangerous to assume to rise above moral laws as to sink 
below them ; in the one case they crush, and in the other 
they undermine. " The half " is, after all, " more than 
the whole," for "the half" may be retained, but "the 
whole " is sure to slip from the fingers of grasping ava- 
rice. Napoleon, who defied all mankind, expiated his 
crimes on a rock in mid-ocean. There, whining, pro- 
testing, and prating of injustice, he died miserably, a 
colossal example of the folly of selfishness. 

Selfishness seeks to wiping from society a support with- 
out giving to it an equivalent return. What industry 
creates and saves to society, selfishness seeks to misap- 
propriate to its own use ; hence selfishness is in confiict 
with the true spirit of civilization, which is the compact 
of all to protect each in his rights. Selfishness caused 
the destruction of all the governments of ancient times, 
and it has been the cause of all the revolutions of modern 
times. There can be no stability in government until 
altruism takes the place of selfishness in the world's code 

lights in the page, because he studies in it his own history." — "Rep- 
resentative Men," p. 221. Boston: Phillips, Sampson & Co., 1858. 

It would be impossible more severely to arraign existing educa- 
tional methods ; for men are what education makes them. 



136 MIND AND HAND. 

of ethics. The sole condition of the stability of the State 
is a disposition on the part of its people to conform to 
justice and correct moral principles in all social rela- 
tions. 

Any system of education that does not tend to produce 
a state of morals conformable to this high standard is not 
merely defective ; it is radically wrong, and therefore 
positively vicious. The true purpose of education is the 
harmonious development of all the powers of the man — 
mental, moral, and physical. But harmony in a selfish 
character is impossible, for selfishness is blind of one 
eye, so to speak ; it considers only one side of a cause — 
the side that relates to its interest, regardless of all other 
interests. Let not prudence be confounded with selfish- 
ness. Prudence and selfishness are as wide apart as the 
poles. Extreme prudence is perfectly consistent with 
entire rectitude, while extreme selfishness is the syno- 
nym of depravity ; hence the first step in education is to 
eliminate selfishness from the mind, and the next step is 
to put rectitude in its place. 

Prevailing systems of education no doubt promote the 
spirit of selfishness :^ witness the character of the struggle 
for self-aggrandizement. It is more intense and more 
widely extended than at any period of the world's his- 

* " In small, undeveloped societies, where for ages complete peace 
has continued, there exists nothing like what we call Government ; 
no coercive agency, but mere honorary headship, if any headship at 
all. In these exceptional communities, unaggressive, and from special 
causes unaggressed upon, there is so little deviation from the virtues 
of truthfulness, honesty, justice, and generosity, that nothing iDeyond 
an occasional expression of public opinion by informally assembled 
elders is needful."— "Political Institutions," t^ 437, 573 ; "The Sins 
of Legislators," in "The Man versus the State," p. 44. By Herbert 
Spencer, New York : D. Appleton & Co. 



THE MOKAL EFFECT OF MANUAL TRAINING. 137 

tory. That it is more intense is shown by the more and 
more rapid concentration of populations in cities, where 
the struggle assumes its most intense form, and exhibits 
itself in its most threatening aspect. 

Cities have always been plague-spots on the body pol- 
itic, and they are not less so now than in ancient times. 
It is in cities that all dangers to the State originate ; 
and the sole, fundamental reason why cities are a stand- 
ing menace to the integrity of the social compact is the 
fact that they are dominated by selfishness. It is in 
cities that the unnatural, unwholesome desire to live 
without labor, to live by speculative enterprises, becomes 
a consuming passion, inoculating with a deeper and dark- 
er degree of selfishness an ever-widening circle of people ; 
and selfishness at last inevitably leads to anarchy. It 
leads to anarchy and chaos because both classes of society 
become depraved — the rich and powerful through indo- 
lence and sensual indulgence, and the poor and wretched 
through ignorance and privation and their attendant 
mean vices. 

The modern city is the despair of the political econ- 
omist. It grows relatively faster in population than 
the rural district, and it would be the extreme of opti- 
mism to declare that it grows better. ^ It does not matter 
that the city is the centre of learning, the nursery of all 
the active intelligences which are achieving fresh tri- 
umphs daily in every department of science, literature, 
and art. It is also the centre of vice, and the nursery 
of every variety of crime. 

The difficulty — nay, the despair — of the situation is 
not relieved or mitigated by the undisputed fact that the 
ancient city was much worse morally and politically than 
the modern city, and hence that as between Rome and 



138 - MIND AND PIAND. 

Chicago there is an immense moral and political advan- 
tage in favor of the latter. If Chicago is retrograding 
morally and politically, what is to prevent it from sinking 
to the moral and political status of Rome under the in- 
famous emperors of the period of its decadence ? If the 
modern American city is rapidly degenerating, both as a 
moral force and a political institution, v^hat is to arrest 
its downward progress ? What influence is to intervene 
to reverse the order and nature of its development? 

Rome, in the very agonies of political dissolution, pos- 
sessed all the then known arts, a splendid literature, and 
a school of philosopliy whose ethical code was more lofty, 
if less human, than that of the new system which was 
struggling to replace the old. That the inconceivably 
atrocious gladiatorial games should have developed into 
such huge proportions in conjunction with the sublime 
moral teachings of Seneca, Plutarch, Marcus Aurelius, 
and a score of others, is the despair of students of Roman 
history. While they taught, emperors and people alike 
feasted their eyes on bloody orgies of men and beasts, 
on scenes of the most horrible barbarity. Caligula took 
special delight in watching the countenances of the dy- 
ing, "for he had learned to take an artistic pleasure in 
observing the variations of their agony." Criminals 
dressed in the skins of wild beasts were thrown to bulls 
which were maddened with red-hot irons. " Four hundred 
bears were killed in a single day nnder Caligula ; three 
hundred on another day under Claudius. Under E'ero, 
four hundred tigers fought with bulls and elephants ; four 
hundred bears and three hundred lions were slaughtered 
by his soldiers. In a single day, at the dedication of the 
Colosseum by Titus, ^ve thousand animals perished. Un- 
der Trajan the games continued for one hundred and 



THE MORAL EFFECT OF MANUAL TRAINING. IB9 

twenty-three successive days. Lions, tigers, rhinoceroses, 
hippopotami, giraffes, bulls, stags, even crocodiles and ser- 
pents, were employed to give novelty to the spectacle." 

And yet the civilization that produced these games 
gave to the world, forever, the moral precepts of the stoics 
and philosophers. Cicero had maintained the doctrine 
of the universal brotherhood of man. " JN^ature ordains," 
he says, " that a man should wish the good of every man, 
whoever he may be, for this very reason : that he is a 
man." Menander maintained that "man should deem 
nothing human foreign to his interest." Lucan looked 
forward to the time when "the human race will cast 
aside its weapons, and all nations learn to love." In a 
letter on the death of his slaves Pliny exhibited feelings 
of strong human affection, and Plutarch, in a letter of 
consolation to his wife on the death of his daughter, left 
a touching record of the tenderness of his heart in the 
recital of a simple trait of the child: " She desired her 
nurse to press even her dolls to the breast. She was so 
loving that she wished everything that gave her pleasure 
to share in the best that she had." Says Seneca, "The 
whole universe which you see around you, comprising all 
things both divine and human, is one. We are members 
of one great body." And Epictetus, " You are a citizen 
and a part of the world. The duty of a citizen is in 
nothing to consider his own interest distinct from that 
of others." 

The contrast between tliese noble moral sentiments 
and the actual life of the Roman people is truly startling.^ 
It is plain that the profession of lofty moral sentiments 
by a class, the possession of high literary attainments, 
and an extensive acquaintance with the arts, do not al- 
ways afford protection against national degradation and 



140 MIND AND HAND. 

decay. N or is it by any means certain that tlie Christian 
religion is destined to effect more in this regard than the 
pagan code of morals. Rome embraced religion, but its 
conversion was powerless to avert political and commer- 
cial destruction. 

The modern city has for guides the example of all the 
ancient civilizations and political and moral systems, and 
in addition it has, in its most vital form, the Christian 
system of morals and faith. But notwithstanding all 
these helps it is politically corrupt and morally depraved. 
Its streets are the scenes of vice scarcely less revolting 
than those of ancient Rome. It harbors an army of 
criminals which grows with its growth, and is without 
any systematized effort either to reform or abolish it. 
Indeed this army of criminals is constantly reinforced in 
an increasing ratio to the whole population from the ranks 
of the rising generation, which is to a degree enforced to 
ignorance by the inadequacy of educational facilities.* 
Its power to accumulate wealth is increasing, but this 
power is confined to relatively fewer hands, and this is 
one of the most alarming features of the situation. For 
the increase of ignorance, vice, and crime is sure to keep 
pace with the abnormal growth of estates, stimulated to 
the highest degree by dishonest business practices and 
gigantic schemes of speculation. 

It does not follow because prevailing methods of edu- 

* la support of the truth of these propositions it is sufficient merely 
to allude to the late disclosures by the Pall Mall Gazette of the prev- 
alence of revolting crimes in London, England. It is also pertinent 
to remark the attitude of hostility maintained by the higher classes 
(so called) of the English people towards the editor of the journal in 
which the disclosures were made, as significant of an alarming de- 
generation of the moral sense of the British public. 



THE MORAL EFFECT OF MANUAL TRAINING. 141 

cation promote the spirit of selfishness, and hence contain 
the seeds of social and moral decay, that they are wholly 
vicious ; but it does follow, if they are not positively 
wrong, that they are negatively wrong. Let us assume 
that they are only negatively wrong, that they lack an 
essential element in all mental and moral training — the 
manual element; and let us try to discover what would 
be the effect of the incorporation of this element into 
the curriculum of the schools. 

A system of education consisting exclusively of men- 
tal exercises promotes selfishness because such training is 
subjective. Its effects flow inward ; they relate to self. 
All mental acquirements become a part of self, and so 
remain forever, unless they are transmuted into things 
through the agency of the hand. 

It is through the hand alone that the mind finally im 
presses itself upon matter. In other words, thought and 
speech must be incarnate in things or they are dead. 
The orator appeals to the people to strike for their 
rights ; the people rend the air with shouts and subside 
into silence. The orator cries, " To Arms !" Again the 
people shout, and again subside into silence. The ora- 
tor's thoughts are of carnage, his words of flames, but 
they are as dead as if never uttered because no hand is 
raised to embody them in deeds. 

Manual training, on the other hand, promotes altruism 
because it is objective. Its effects flow outward ; they 
relate not to self but to the human race. The skilled 
hand confers benefits upon man, and each benefit so 
conferred exerts the natural refiex moral influence of 
a good act upon the mind of the benefactor. ^ 

Morality is not a mere sentiment, a barren ideality. It 
is true there is a negative morality which consists in 



142 MIND AND HAND. 

refraining from the commission of wrongful acts. But 
the morality of the great ethical teachers is positive ; it 
consists in doing. Christ said, " Inasmuch as je have 
done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye 
have done it nnto me." Words without acts are as dead 
as faith without works. Paul said, " Though 1 have all 
faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not 
charity, I am nothing." 

Morality is a vital principle whose exemplification con- 
sists in doing justice ; and justice is that virtue " which 
consists in giving to every one what is his due; practical 
conformity to the laws and to principles of rectitude in 
the dealings of men with each other ; honesty, integrity 
in commerce or mutual intercourse." It follows that 
morality can no more be acquired by memorizing a series 
of maxims than the art of using tools can be acquired by 
studying the laws of mechanics and of mechanism. 

1 "No city was ever so deeply disgraced by its municipal govern- 
ment as the city of New York, Fourteen years ago the exposure of 
the Tweed Ring revealed a corruption in that government which had 
mastered Legislatures and courts, and was plotting to control the na- 
tional administration; and as we write, all of the living ex-members 
of the late Board of Aldermen, except two, are held for trial for 
bribery and corruption, or are in hiding. 

" Such a shame is unprecedented. It is in itself a sharp satire 
upon popular elections, as well as upon the character and public 
spirit of New York; and the worst of it is that, bad as it is, no citi- 
zen probably feels himself to be humiliated, or is conscious of any 
personal responsibility. To the most stupid man, however, such 
facts forecast a constant deterioration of the situation." — "Harper's 
Weekly," April 24, 1886. 

2 The morality of the present age, like that of the Romans, is a 
mere theory, entirely destitute of vital force. Selfishness is still, as 
it always has been, the controlling element in human conduct, and 
selfishness and morality are utterly incompatible. Moral precepts 
are inculcated in a perfunctory way, as Greek is taught because it is 



THE MORAL EFFECT OF MANUAL TRAINING. 1-13 

the fashion, liut with no more idea that they will be adopted as the 
rule of life, than that the language of Homer will again be used as 
the instrument of speech. The contempt in which morality is com. 
monly held is well shown by the remark of a popular lecturer, who 
said of Peter the Great, that, " viewed morally he was a monster, 
and by the gauge of decency, a brute, but a giant from the lofty 
heights of statesmanship and civilization." How vain is the hope 
of reform while leaders of men deem it possible for statesmanship to 
be rendered lofty by a moral monster, or that the cause of civilization 
may be advanced by a brute! 

3 "The artisan stands between every man, woman, and child and 
the crude materials embodied in the three kingdoms of Nature, and 
by the magic of his skill they are transformed into means serviceable 
for use. The wood in the forest, the marble in the quarry, the clay 
in the bank, the metal in the mine pass through his hands, take on 
the form of his thought, become arranged by his intelligence, and 
the product is the modern dwelling. Is there any fancy in fairy tale 
more wonderful than this? By the skill of the tanner and the shoe- 
maker the raw skin is transformed into the useful shoe. Do you 
ever think of your indebtedness to these humble toilers for your 
protection and comfort? Do they ever think of the service they are 
rendering you? — a service which cannot be compensated by dollars 
and cents. The jewels which sparkle in royal crowns and add 
lustre to queenly beauty, the silks and precious stuffs which clothe 
and give new charms to the loveliness of women, owe their beauty, 
their lustre, their value to the artisan. He stands between the 
worm, the mine, and the wearer, and by the transforming power of 
his skill and patient labor they become robes of beauty and gems of 
light. But of far greater importance is the service he is rendering to 
our common humanity. He takes the material which our Heavenly 
Father has provided in such abundance, puts his thought, his in- 
telligence, and he has every conceivable motive for putting his love 
and good-will toward men, into them and passing them on as tokens 
of his love and fidelity to human good. Ever3''thing he touches be- 
comes a message not only of his knowledge and his skill but a fit 
embodiment of his regard for his fellow-men." — "Mechanical Em- 
ployments as Means of Human Culture." Rev. Chauncey Giles. 
Eleventh Series Tracts, p. 15. Philadelphia: New Church Tract 
and Publication Society. 



J 44 MIND AND HAND. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE MIND AND THE HAND. 

The Mind and the Hand are Allies ; the Mind speculates, the Hand 
tests its Speculations in Things. — The Hand explodes the Errors of 
the Mind— it searches after Truth and finds it in Things.— Mental 
Errors are subtile; thej^ elude us, but the False in Things stands self- 
exposed.— The Hand is the Mind's Moral Rudder. — The Organ of 
Touch the most Wonderful of the Senses; all the Others are Pas- 
sive ; it alone is Active. — Sir Charles Bell's Discovery of a " Muscular 
Sense."— Dr. Henry Maudsley on the Muscular Sense. — The Hand 
influences the Brain. — Connected Thought impossible without Lan- 
guage, and Language dependent upon Objects; and all Artificial 
Objects are the Work of the Hand. — Progress is therefore the Im- 
print of the Hand upon Matter in Art. — The Hand is nearer the 
Brain than are the Eye and the Ear. — The Marvellous Works of 
the Hand. 

A PURELY mental acquirement is a theorem — some- 
thing to be proved. As to whether the theorem is sus- 
ceptible of proof is always a question until the doubt is 
solved by the act of doing. Hence Comenius's definition 
of education — " Let those things that have to be done be 
learned by doing them" — is profoundly philosophical, 
since nothing can be fully learned without the final act 
of doing, owing to the fact of the incompleteness of all 
theoretical knowledge. 

The mind and the hand are natural allies. The mind 
speculates; the hand tests the speculations of the mind by 
the law of practical application. The hand explodes the 
errors of the mind, for it inquires, so to speak, by the act 
of doing, whether or not a given theorem is demonstra- 



THE MIND AND THE HAND. 145 

ble in the form of a problem. The hand is, therefore, 
not only constantly searching after the truth, but is con- 
stantly finding it.'^ It is possible for the mind to indulge 
in false logic, to make the worse appear the better rea- 
son, without instant exposure. But for the hand to work 
falsely is to produce a misshapen thing — tool or machine 
— which in its construction gives the lie to its maker. 
Tims the hand that is false to truth, in the very act 
publishes the verdict of its own guilt, exposes itself to 
contempt and derision, convicts itself of unskilfulness or 
of dishonesty. 

There is no escaping the logical conclusion of an in- 
vestigation into the relations existing between the mind 
and the hand. The hand is scarcely less the guide than 
the agent of the mind. It steadies the mind. It is 
the mind's moral rudder, its balance - wheel. It is the 
mind's monitor. It is constantly appealing to the mind, 
by its acts, to " hew to the line, let the chips fly where 
they may." 

Dr. George Wilson says, " In many respects the organ 
of touch, as embodied in the hand, is the most wonderful 
of the senses. The organs of the other senses are pas- 
sive ; the organ of touch alone is active. . . . The hand 
selects what it shall touch, and touches what it pleases. 
It puts away from it the things which it hates, and beck- 
ons towards it the things which it desires. . . . More- 

* " In other cases, even by the strictest attention, it is not possible 
to give complete or strict truth in words. We could not, by any 
number of words, describe the color of a ribbon so as to enable a 
mercer to match it without seeing it. But an ' accurate ' colorist can 
convey the required intelligence at once, with a tint on paper." — 
' ' The Laws of Feesole, " YoL I. , p. 7. By John Ruskin, LL. D. New 
York: Jolm Wiley & Sons, 1879. 



146 MIND AND HAND. 

over, the hand cares not only for its own wants, but when 
the other organs of the senses are rendered useless takes 
their duties upon it. . . . The blind man reads with 
his hand, the dumb man speaks with it ; it plucks the 
flower for the nostril, and supplies the tongue with ob- 
jects of taste. [N^ot less amply does it give expression to 
the wit, the genius, the will, the power of man. Put a 
sword into it and it will fight, a plough and it will till, a 
harp and it will play, a pencil and it will paint, a pen and 
it will speak. What, moreover, is a ship, a railway, a 
light-house, or a palace — what indeed is a whole city, a 
whole continent of cities, all the cities of the globe, nay 
the very globe itself, so far as man has changed it, but 
the work of that giant hand with which the human race, 
acting as one mighty man, has executed his w^ill."* 

There is a philosophical ex]3lanation of the versatility 
of the hand so graphically portrayed in the foregoing 
passage, and it is found in Sir Charles Bell's great discov- 
ery of a " muscular sense." The principle of this discov- 
ery is that " there are distinct nerves of sensation and of 
motion or volition — one set bearing messages from the 
body to the brain, and the other from the brain to the 
body. " 

In his work on the hand, after reviewing the line of 
argument which led to his discovery, Sir Charles says, 
" By such arguments I have been in the habit of show- 
ing that we possess a muscular sense, and that without it 
we could have no guidance of the frame. We could not 
command our muscles in standing, far less in walking, 
leaping, or running, had we not a perception of the con- 



* "The Five. Gateways of Knowledge," p. 121. By George Wil- 
son, M.D., F.R.S.E. London: Macmillau & Co., 1881. 



THE MIND AND THE HAND. 147 

dition of the muscles previous to the exercise of the will. 
And as for the hand, it is not more the freedom of its 
action which constitutes its perfection, than the knowl- 
edge which we have of these motions, and our conse- 
quent ability to direct it with the utmost precision."" 

On the influence of the muscular sense. Dr. Henry 
Maudsley has these pertinent observations : 

" Those who would degrade the body, in order, as they 
imagine, to exalt the mind, should consider more deeply 
than they do the importance of our muscular expressions 
of feeling. The manifold shades and kinds of expression 
which the lips present — their gibes, gambols, and flashes 
of merriment ; the quick language of a quivering nostril ; 
the varied waves and ripples of beautiful emotion which 
play on the human countenance, with the spasms of pas- 
sion that disfigure it — all which we take such pains to 
embody in art — are simply effects of muscular action. 
. . . Fix the countenance in the pattern of a particular 
emotion — in a look of anger, of wonder, or of scorn — and 
the emotion whose appearance is thus imitated will not fail 
to be aroused. And if we try, while the features are fixed 
in the expression of one passion, to call up in the mind a 
quite different one, we shall find it impossible to do so. 
. . . We perceive, then, that the muscles are not alone the 
machinery by which the mind acts upon the world, but 
that their actions are essential elements in our mental op- 
erations. The superiority of the human over the animal 
mind seems to be essentially connected with the great- 
er variety of muscular action of w^hich man is ca]3able ; 



* "The Hand : its Mechanism and Vital Endowments as Evinc- 
ing Design," p. 151. By Sir Charles Bell, K.G.H., F.R.S., L. and E. 
Harper & Brothers, 1864. 



148 MIND AND HAND. 

were he deprived of the iniinitelj varied movements of 
hands, tongue, larynx, lips, and face, in which he is so far 
ahead of the animals, it is probable that he wonld be no 
better than an idiot, notwithstanding he might have a 
normal development of brain. ""^' 

It is through the muscular sense that the hand influ- 
ences the brain. According to Sir Charles the hand acts 
first. It telegraphs, for example, that it is ready to grasp 
the chisel or the sledge-hammer, or seize the pen, where- 
upon the brain telegraphs back precise directions as to 
the work to be done. These messages to and fro are 
lightning-like flashes of intelligence, which blend or fuse 
all the powers of the man, both mental and physical, and 
inform and inspire the mass with vital force. f 

Through constant use the muscular sense is sharpened 
to a marvellous degree of flneness, and the hand, perme- 
ated by it, forms" habits which react powerfully ujDon the 
mind. If, now, during the period of childhood and youth, 
the hand is exercised in the useful and beautiful arts, its 
muscular sense will be developed normally, or in the di- 



* "Body and Mind," p. 33. By Henry Maudsley, M.D. New 
York: D. Appleton & Co., 1883. 

f The goldsmith's art was one of the finest among the ancients, 
and so continued far into the Middle Ages. The cutting of cameos, 
for example, required the highest skill and produced the most ex- 
quisite results. Mr. Ruskin calls attention to the fact that "all the 
great early Italian masters of painting and sculpture, without ex- 
ception, began by being goldsmiths' apprentices;" and that "they 
felt themselves so indebted to, and formed by, the master crafts- 
man who had mainly disciplined their fingers, whether in work on 
gold or marble, that they practically considered him their father, 
and took his name rather than their own." — "Fors Clavigera," 
Part III., p. 291. By John Ruskin, LL.D. New York: John 
Wiley & Sons, 1881. 



J 



THE MIND AND THE PI AND. 149 

rection of rectitude, and tlie reflex effect of this growth 
upon the mind will be beneflcent. 

It is thus that the trained hand comes at last to foresee, 
as it were, that a false proposition is surely destined to 
be exploded. The habit of rectitude gives it prescience. 
It invariably discovers, sooner or later, that a false prop- 
osition, when embodied in wood or iron, becomes a con- 
spicuous abortion, involving in disgrace both the designer 
and the maker. A false proposition in the abstract may 
be rendered very alluring; a false proposition in the 
concrete is always hideous. One of the chief effects of 
manual training is, then, the discovery and development 
of truth ; and truth, in its broadest signiflcation, is merely 
another name for justice ; and justice is the synonym of 
morality. 

It has been shown that thought and speech are dead 
unless embodied in things. It may also be asserted with 
confidence that man would lose the power of speech al- 
most wholly if his words should cease to be realized in 
things. Mr. Darwin declares that "a complex train of 
thought can no more be carried on without the aid of 
words, whether spoken or silent, than a long calculation 
without the use of figures or algebra.""^ And Di*. Mauds- 
ley says, " But neither these instances nor the case of 
Laura Bridgman can be used to prove that it is possible 
to think w^ithout any means of physical expression. On 
the contrary the evidence is all the other way. The deaf 
and dumb man invents his own signs, which he draws 
from the nature of objects, seizing the most striking out- 
line, or the principal movement of an action, and using 

* " The Descent of Man," p. 88. By Charles Darwin, M. A. New 
York : D. Appleton & Co., 1881. 



150 MIND AND HAND. 

them afterwards as tokens to represent the objects. The 
deaf and dumb gesticulate also as they think ; and Laura 
Bridgman's fingers worked, making the initial movements 
for letters of the finger alphabet, not only during her 
waking thoughts, but in her dreams. If we substitute 
for 'names' the motor intuitions, or take care to com- 
prise in language all the modes of expressing thoughts, 
whether verbal, vocal writing, or gesture language, then 
it is unquestionable that thought is impossible without 
language."* 

As connected thoughts are impossible without words, 
or signs of words, so words are dependent upon objects 
for their existence. Says Dr. Maudsley, " Words cannot 
attain to definiteness save as living outgrowths of reali- 
ties."f And Heyse says, " Thought is not even present 
to the thinker till he has set it forth out of himself." 

It follows that language has its origin not less in ex- 
ternal objects than in the mind. Objects make impres- 
sions upon the mind through the senses, and words serve 
as the means of preserving a record of such impressions 
and of communicating them to other minds. If, now, 
the mind should cease to receive impressions, language 
would no longer be required, since there would be noth- 
ing to express ; and the occasion for the use of language 
ceasing to exist, the power of speech would ultimately be 
lost. The power of speech, then, depends upon a con- 

* "Physiology of the Mind," p. 480. By Henry Maudsley, M.D. 
New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1883. 

f " I therefore declare my conviction," says Max Milller, "whether 
right or wrong, as explicitly as possible, that thought in one sense 
of the word, i.e., in reasoning, is impossible without language." — 
"Physiology of the Mind," p. 480. By Henry Maudsley, M.D. 
New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1883. 



THE MINI) AND THE HAND. 151 

tiniioiis succession of impressions made upon the mind 
by its contact, through the senses, with matter in its 
various forms, whetlier in nature or in art. 

It may also be claimed that the power of speech de- 
pends almost entirely upon the endless succession of 
fresh objects presented to the mind by the hand. These 
form the subject as well as the occasion of speech. If 
the hand should cease to make new things, new words 
would cease to be required. The principal changes in 
language arise out of new discoveries in science and new 
inventions in art, each fresh discovery of science giving 
rise to many new things in art. Art and science react 
upon each other.* The growth of a State, its advance 
in the scale of civilization, depends upon progress in the 
practical arts. Hence the fact that, when a State ceases 
to advance, its language ceases to grow, becomes station- 
ary, stagnates. In such a State there would be no occa- 
sion for new words. If a constantly diminishing number 
of objects were presented to the mind, speech would 
become less and less necessary. If no new objects were 
presented, no fresh impressions upon the mind would be 
made, and speech would degenerate into a mere iteration. 
If the hands should cease to labor in the arts, should 
cease to make things, should cease to plant and gather, 
the scope of speech would be still further restricted, 
would be confined to an expression of the wants of sav- 
ages subsisting on the native fruits of field and forest. 

It comes to this, that progress can find expression only 

* "And the great advances in science have uniformly corresponded 
with the invention of some instrument by which the power of the 
senses has been increased, or the range of action extended." — " Phys- 
iology of the Mind," p. 8. By Henry Maudsley, M.D. New York : 
D. Appleton & Co., 1883. 



152 MIND AND HAND. 

in the concrete. Guttenberg had an idea that he could em- 
ploy movable types in the production of books. Suppose 
he had been content with the mere promulgation of his 
theory in words, and that those who came after him had 
been similarly content? There would have been no 
printing-presses down to the present time. Suppose that 
Watt and Stephenson and Fulton had been content with 
the declaration, in words, of the discoveries they made 
in regard to the application of the power of steam to 
useful purposes, and that those who came after them 
had been similarly content? There would have been 
neither railways, nor steamships, nor steam-driven ma- 
chinery of any kind down to the present time. 

As words are essential to the processes of thought, so 
objects are essential to words or living speech. And as 
all objects made by man owe their existence to the hand, 
it follows that the hand exerts an incalculable influence 
upon the mind, and so constitutes the most potent agency 
in the work of civilization. It was not without good 
reason that Anaxagoras characterized man as the wisest 
of animals because of his having hands. And what is it 
to be wise ? To be wise is " to have the power of dis- 
cerning and judging correctly, or of discriminating be- 
tween what is true and what is false ; between what is 
fit and proper and what is improper." The hand is used 
as the synonym of wisdom because it is only in the con- 
crete that the false is sure of detection, and it is through 
the hand alone that ideas are realized in things.* Again 
we have the hand as the discoverer of truth. 



* "Let him [the youth] once learn to take a straight shaving off a 
plank, Of draw a fine curve without faltering, or lay a brick level in 
its mortar, and he has learned a multitude of other matters which no 



THE MIND AND THE HAND. 153 

Tlie assertion of the majesty of tlie liand by the loinc 
philosoplier of the fifth century B.C. contained the 
germ of the manual training idea of this latter part of 
the nineteenth century. Anaxagoras was unconsciously, 
no doubt, struggling toward the light, toward the in- 
ductive method of investigation, toward the sole avenue 
through which it is possible to study the mind, namely, 
through the body. The ignorance of the ancients on the 
subject of physiology was so dense as to leave them no 
resource save speculative philosophy. The progress 
made in the study of anatomy, and organic and inorganic 
chemistry at Alexandria, was, however, considerable. The 
foundations of a systematic physiology were being secure- 
ly laid by Hippocrates, Herophilus, and their compeers of 
the medical profession, and the way was thus being open- 
ed to an intelligent study of the mind. It is highly prob- 
able that this growing disposition to investigate things, 
together with the increasing importance to civilization 
of the useful arts, would soon have reacted destructively 
upon the speculative philosophy of the time had not a 
series of national disasters, involving the fall of Greece 
and Rome, overwhelmed both arts and philosophy in one 
common ruin. 

From the fall of Rome to the time of Bacon specu- 
lative philosophy dominated the world. Progress dates 
from the beginning of the seventeenth century, but it 
was very slow until within a hundred years. Philosoj)hy 
has now, however, found a scientific basis. Instead of 
speculating about the " theory of vitality," it concerns 
itself wdth " the natural phenomena of living bodies, so 



lips of man could ever teach Mm."— " Time and Tide," p. 145. By 
John Ruskin, LL.D. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1883. 



154 MIND AND HAND. 

far as they are appreciable by the human senses and in- 
telligence." 

But the schools have not moved forward with events. 
Their methods are unscientific ; they are still dominated 
by the mediaeval ideas of speculative philosophy. One 
of the ablest educators in this country has well observed 
that "there has been very little change in the ideas 
which have controlled our methods of education, and 
these ideas were formed something like four hundred 
years ago. Like nearly all the great agencies of modern 
civilization, the established system of education dates 
from the Renaissance, and the direction given to the 
schools at that time has been followed wdth but slight 
modification ever since.""^ 

The justice of this arraignment of the schools for ex- 
treme conservatism is shown by the remark of a promi- 
nent educator who opposes the incorporation of manual 
training in the curriculum of the public schools. He 
says, " Some even go so far as to regard the fingers as a 
new avenue to the brain, and think that great pedagogic 
advantages will be given by the new method, so that 
boys may make equal attainments in arithmetic, read- 
ing, and grammar in less time. . . . They [teachers] will 
still find the eye and ear nearer to the brain than the 
hand." ]^o assumption could be more false than this, 
that the eye and the ear are more important organs than 
the hand because they are located, physically, nearer the 
brain. The attribute of mobility with which the hand is 
endowed confers upon it not only the potency of the 



* Mr. James MacAlister, Superintendent of Scliools of the City of 
Philadelphia, before the American Institute of Instruction at Sarato- 
ga, July 13, 1882. 



THE MIND AND THE HAND. 155 

closest possible proximity, but each of the countless po- 
sitions it may assume, together with its flexibility and 
adaptabihty, multiplies its powers in the order of a geo- 
metrical ratio. 

This disposition to undervalue the hand is an inheri- 
tance from the speculative philosophy of the Middle 
Ages, which was based on contempt of the body and all 
its members. The effect of this false doctrine has been 
vicious in the extreme. Contempt for the body has gen- 
erated a feeling of contempt for manual labor, and repug- 
nance to manual labor has multiplied dishonest practices 
in the course of the struggle to acquire wealth by any 
other means than manual labor, and so corrupted society. 

That man should feel contempt for the most efficient 
member of his own body is, indeed, incomprehensible, 
since contempt for the hand leads logically to contempt 
for its works, and its works comprise all the visible 
results of civilization. To enumerate the works of the 
hand would be to describe the world as it at present ex- 
ists in contradistinction to the world in a state of nature. 
Everywhere we behold with admiration and wonder the 
marvellous triumphs of the hand, from the iron bridge 
that spans the torrent of Niagara to the steel microm- 
eter that measures the millionth part of an inch. It 
matters not whether the hand is nearer or farther from 
the brain than the eye and the ear, it is able to afford 
powerful aid to them. 

Man would explore the planetary system ; he lifts his 
longing eyes to the starry vault, but in vain ; it is a 
sealed book! The hand fashions the telescope, adjusts 
it, places it at a convenient angle, and the milky way is 
resolved into millions of stars, " scattered like glittering 
dust on the black ground of the general heavens," the 



156 MIND AND HAND. 

lunar mountains are measured, and the spots on the sun 
revealed. Man would study the anatomy and habits of the 
myriads of insects in which the teeming earth abounds. 
Impossible ! The mechanism of the eye is not adapted 
to such a delicate operation. But the hand presents the 
microscope, and a world of hitherto unknown minute ex- 
istences is revealed with a distinctness which permits the 
most exhaustive investigation. Thus, through the aid of 
the hand, the eye now contemplates with philosophic 
interest the ever-changing aspect of the spots on the sun 
at a distance of ninety million miles, and now imprisons 
the red ant, measuring only ^^ of an inch in length, and 
studies its physiology, counting its pulsations, classifying 
its nerves and muscles, and weighing its brain. Man 
would speak with his friend or business correspondent 
miles away. ISTeither the voice nor the ear is adapted to 
the task. But the hand fashions and presents the tele- 
phone, and the conversation proceeds even in a whisper. 
It will be said that the mind devises the telescope, the mi- 
croscope, and the telephone. True, but their construction 
would be impossible without the hand. And is it at all 
probable that the mind would have devised these admira- 
ble instruments if man had been made without hands ?^ 

* "The hand is the most marvellous instrument in the world; it is 
the necessary complement of the mind in dealing with matter in all 
its varied forms. It is the hand that 'rounded Peter's dome;' it is 
the hand that carved those statues in marble and bronze, that painted 
those pictures in palace and church, which we travel into distant 
lands to admire; it is the hand that builds the ships which sail the 
sea, laden with the commerce of the world ; it is the hand that con- 
structs the machinery which moves the busy industries of this age of 
steam; it is the hand that enables the mind to realize in a thousand 
ways its highest imaginings, its profoundest reasonings, and its most 
practical inventions." — Mr. James MacAlister, Superintendent of 
Schools of the Cit}^ of Philadelphia, before the American Institute of 
Instruction at Saratoga, Julv 13, 1882. 



THE POWER OF THE TRAINED HAND. 157 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE POWER OF THE TRAINED HAND. 

The Legend of Adam and the Stick with which he subdued the Ani- 
mals. — The Stick is the Symbol of Power, and only the Hand can 
wield it. — The Hand imprisons Steam and Electricity, and keeps 
them at hard Labor. — The Destitution of England Two Hundred 
Years ago ; a Pen Picture. — The Transformation wrought by 
the Hand : a Pen Picture. — It is due, not to Men wlio make 
Laws, but to Men who make Things. — The Scientist and the In- 
ventor are the World's Benefactors. — A Parallel between the Right 
Honorable William E. Gladstone and Sir Henry Bessemer. — Mr. 
Gladstone a Man of Ideas, Mr. Bessemer a Man of Deeds.— The 
Value of the latter's Inventions, — Mr. Gladstone represents the Old 
Education, Mr. Bessemer the New. 

It has been remarked that man is the wisest of animals 
because he has hands. It is equall_y true that he is the 
most powerful of animals because he has hands. It is 
with the hand that man has subdued all the animals. 
There is a legend to the effect that on the day when 
Adam revolted against his Maker, the animals, in their 
turn, revolted against him, and ceased to obey him. 
"Adam called on the Lord for help, and the Lord com- 
manded him to take a branch from the nearest tree and 
make of it a weapon, and strike with it the first animal 
that should refuse to obey him, Adam took the branch, 
the leaves fell from it of their own accord, and he found 
himself furnished with a stick proportioned to his 
height. When the animals saw this weapon in the hands 
of the man they were seized with an instinctive fear 
mingled with wonder, and they did not dare to attack 



158 MIND AND HAND. 

liim. A lion alone, bolder than the rest, leaped upon 
him to devour him, but Adam, who stood upon his 
guard, swift as lightning whirled his stick and felled him 
to the earth with a single blow ! At this sight the terror 
of the other animals was so great that they approached 
him trembling, and in token of their submission licked 
the stick that he held in his hand."^ 

Throughout all the early ages the stick was both the 
symbol and the instrument of power ; and it is only the 
hand that can grasp and wield the stick. The early 
kings reigned by virtue of the strong arm and the supple 
hand. They claimed to be descended from Hercules, 
and their emblem of power was a knotty stick. Nor 
does empire depend less upon the hand now than it did 
in the morning of time. 

The hand no longer grasps the knotty stick; it no 
longer menaces mankind. But it wields the mechanical 
powers. It imprisons steam and electricity, and keeps 
them at hard labor. It makes ploughs, planters, harvest- 
ers, sewing-machines, locomotives, and steamships. It 
digs canals, opens mines, builds bridges, makes roads, 
erects mills and factories, constructs harbors and docks, 
reclaims waste lands, and covers the globe with tracks of 
steel over which the commerce of the world is borne. 

Two hundred years ago England was destitute of 
most of these things. It had then no good dirt roads 
even, no good bridges, no canals, no public works 
worth mentioning, and scarcely any manufactories of 
importance. The post-bags were carried on horseback 



* "The Story of the Stick," p. 2. Translated and Adapted from 
the French of Antony Real [Fernand Michel]. New York: J. W. 
Bouton, 1875 



THE POWER OF THE TRAINED HAND, 159 

once a week. The highways were besieged by robbers. 
One-fifth of the community were paupers. Mechanics 
worked for from sixpence to a shilling a day. The chief 
food of the poor was rye, barley, or oats. The people 
were ignorant and brutal — masters beat their servants, 
nnd husbands beat their wives. Teachers used the lash as 
the principal means of imparting knowledge. The mob 
rejoiced in fights of all kinds, and shouted with glee 
when an eye w^as torn out or a finger chopped off in 
these savage encounters. Executions were favorite pub- 
lic amusements. The prisons were full, and proved to be 
fruitful nurseries of crime. 

From little better than a wilderness, and almost a 
state of savagery, England has been transformed into a 
fruitful field, and its people raised in the scale of civ- 
ilization. Its public works are the admiration of the 
world ; its coffers are full of gold ; its strong boxes are 
piled high with evidences of the indebtedness of other 
nations ; its ships plough the billows of every sea, and 
bear tlie commerce of every land ; and its manufactories, 
of vast extent, are monuments of inventive genius, in- 
dustry, perseverance, and skill, more imposing far than 
the pyramids of Egypt or the temples of Greece and 
Rome. 

To whom do the people of England and of the world 
owe this national progress, this progress in the useful 
arts on a scale so colossal as, by comparison, to dwarf 
the achievements of all the earlier epochs of history? 
Not to statesmen or legislators. They neither dig ca- 
nals, open mines, build railways, lay ocean cables, nor 
erect factories. The pen in their hands may be mightier 
than the sword ; but it is no match for the plough and 
the reaper, the electric battery and imprisoned steam. 



160 MIND AND HAND. 

Leo^islators make laws bnt mechanics make things. On 
this subject, after an exhaustive investigation, Buckle 
says, " Seeing, therefore, that the efforts of government 
in favor of civilization are, when most successful, alto- 
gether negative, and seeing, too, that when these efforts 
are more than negative they become injurious, it clear 
ly follows that all sj)eculations must be erroneous which 
ascribe the progress of Europe to the wisdom of its 
rulerSo This is an inference which rests not only on the 
arguments already adduced, but on facts which might be 
multiplied from every page of history. . . . We have 
seen that their laws in favor of industry have injured 
industry, that their laws in favor of religion have in- 
creased hypocrisy, and that their laws to secure truth 
have encouraged perjury. . . . But it is a mere matter 
of history that our legislators, even to the last moment, 
were so terrified by the idea of innovation that they re- 
fused every reform until the voice of the people rose 
high enough to awe them into submission, and forced 
them to grant what, without much pressure, they would 
by no means have conceded.""^ 

It is, then, clearly not to the men who make laws that 
we are indebted for progress in civilization, but to the 
men who make things. The scientist who discovers a 
new principle in physics is a public benefactor. The 
inventor who devises a new machine helps forward the 
cause of progress. Whitney's cotton-gin trebled the 
value of the cotton-fields of the South. The mechanic 
who constructs a machine that will make ten or a hun- 
dred things in the time before required to make one 



* "History of Civilization in England," Vol. I., pp. 204, 205, 361. 
By Henry Thomas Buckle. New York ; D. Appleton & Co. 



THE POWER OF THE TRAINED HAND. lOl 

thing is in the front rank of the civihzers of the human 
race.* 

Inventors, not statesmen, rule the world through their 
machines, wiiich augment the powers of man and sliarpen 
his senses. Steam has made all civilized countries pros- 
perous and great by vastly increasing man's powers — by 
making him hundred-handed. f 

In 1809 there was born to a distinguished baronet of 
Liverpool, England, a son. The boy was educated at 
Eton and Christ Church College, Oxford, graduating in 
1831. In 1832 the young man entered parliament. In 
1834 he took office under Sir Robert Peel. The name 
of the young man who commenced life under such 
auspicious circumstances was William Ewart Gladstone. 
For nearly half a century Mr. Gladstone was a prom- 
inent figure in English politics and administration. 
During that long period of time he was in the eye of the 
world, so to speak. He moulded the laws of an em- 
pire, repealed old statutes and made new statutes, largely 
influenced both the domestic and the foreign policy of a 
great nation, and exerted a considerable degree of con- 



, * " Your wealth, your amusement, your pride, would all be alike 
impossible, but for those whom you scorn or forget. . . . The sailor 
wrestling with the sea's rage ; the quiet student poring over his book 
or his vial ; the common worker, without praise, and nearly without 
bread, fulfilling his task as your horses drag your carts, hopeless, 
and spurned of all : these are the men by whom England lives." — 
" Sesame and Lilies," p. 68. By John Ruskin, LL.D. New York: 
John Wiley & Sons, 1884. 

f "The causes which most disturbed or accelerated the normal 
progress of society in antiquity were the appearance of great men; 
in modern times they have been the appearance of great inventions. " 
—"History of European Morals," Vol. I., p. 126. By William Ed- 
ward Hartpole Lecky, M.A. Kew York : D. Appleton & Co. 



162 MIND AND PIAND. 

trol over the international affairs of tlie continent of 
Europe. 

In 1813, four years after the birth of Mr. Gladstone, 
at Charlton, in Hertfordshire, England, Henry Bessemer 
was born. His father, Anthony Bessemer, had fled to 
England in 1Y92, a refugee from France. Henry Besse- 
mer's early training consisted of the rudiments of an 
ordinary education received in the parish school of the 
neighboring town of Hitchin. His father was a skilled 
mechanic and inventor, and Henry inherited the invent- 
ive faculty. He studied and practised the art of wood- 
turnery, producing, before arriving at the age of man- 
hood, the most difficult patterns known to the art. 

At the age of eighteen, in the year 1831 — the year in 
which Mr. Gladstone completed his education — young 
Bessemer appeared in London, an obscure, unknown 
stranger. He, however, secured employment as a mod- 
eller and designer. His attention was soon directed to 
the imperfections of government stamps, in which there 
had been no improvement since the time of Queen Anne. 
He was informed by Sir Charles Persley, of the Stamp- 
office, that the frauds in stamps probably aggregated 
one hundred thousand pounds per annum. In the even- 
ings of a few months he invented and made an im- 
proved stamp which obviated the objections to the one 
then in use. The invention was at once adopted by the 
Stamp-office, and in lieu of a stipulated sum in payment 
therefor, young Bessemer was asked " whether he would 
be satisfied with the position of superintendent of stamps, 
with five hundred or six hundred pounds per annum ?" 
The suggested appointment he agreed to accept. Mean- 
time, before the contemplated change occurred in the 
Stamp-office, the young inventor devised a further im- 



THE POWER OF THE TRAINED HAND. 163 

provement in the new stamp, whicli not only made it much 
more perfect, but rendered it unnecessary for the govern- 
ment to employ a superintendent of stamps. In perfect 
good faith young Bessemer exhibited to the chief of the 
Stamp-office his new stamp, whicn was so palpably an im- 
provement on the other that it was at once preferred and 
promptly adopted. What is more, the government not 
only declined to appoint the inventor to a place, but 
declined to give hini a penny for his. invention. This was 
in 1834, the year in which Mr. Gladstone began his 
long career as a representative of the British Crown. 
As young Mr. Gladstone entered the Treasury, its 
"junior lord," young Mr. Bessemer retired from it an 
unsuccessful suitor for the just reward of genius and toil. 
He says, " Thus sad and dispirited, and with a burning 
sense of injustice overpowering all other feelings, I went 
my way from the Stamp-office, too proud to ask as a fa- 
vor that which was indubitably my right."* 

From this point, both of time and event, there is a 
very wide divergence in the lives of these great men. 
The one is a man of ideas, the other a man of deeds. 
Mr. Gladstone thinks, talks, makes treaties and laws. He 
is constantly in the public eye, and his name ever on the 
public tongue. He is regarded as a great financier; he 
is certainly a great orator. He sways the multitude with 
his eloquence. He takes distinguished part in the wordy 
contests which occur every now and then in Parliament. 
These debates are much talked of. At the conclusion 
of one of them there is a vote of want of confidence, 
and Mr. Gladstone goes out of office and Mr. Dis- 



* "The Creators of the Age of Steel," p. 20. By W. T. Jeans. 
New York : Charles Scribner's Sons, 1884. 



164 ' MIND AND HAND. 

raeli comes in. At the conclusion of another of them 
there is a vote of want of confidence, and Mr. Disraeli 
goes out of office and Mr. Gladstone comes in. But 
whether Mr. Gladstone goes out and Mr, Disraeli comes 
in, or Mr. Disraeli goes out and Mr. Gladstone comes in, 
makes very little difference with the trade and commerce 
of the kingdom. The railway traffic continues in the 
one event or the other ; the steamers continue to cross 
and recross the ocean ; the " post " comes and goes ; the 
electric current continues to act as messenger-boy; tjie 
telephone brings us face to face with our business corre- 
spondent or friend. There is, indeed, no reason why a vote 
of want of confidence in Mr. Gladstone or Mr. Disraeli 
should imply a want of confidence in steam or electricity, 
because neither Mr. Gladstone nor Mr. Disiaeli ever had 
anything to do with the application of these great forces 
to the uses of man. They were entirely absorbed, the 
one in promoting the advancement of Liberalism, and 
the other in promoting the advancement of Toryism. 
And it is a curious fact, as showing the mutability of 
political opinion, that Mr. Disraeli entered public life as 
a Liberal, and subsequently became a great Tory leader ; 
and Mr. Gladstone entered public life as a Tory, and sub- 
sequently became a great Liberal leader. 

For twenty-two years after he retired empty-handed 
from the government Stamp-office Mr. Bessemer con- 
tinued his career as an inventor and manufacturer, 
without, however, attracting any great share of public 
attention. But in 1856 he announced that he had made 
a discovery of vast importance in the process of steel 
making."^ For a hundred years previously the Huntsman 

* " The first patent of Sir H. Bessemer in which air is mentioned 



THE POVVEK OF THE TRAINED HAND. 165 

process had held the field. It yielded excellent steel but 
was very expensive. Mr. Bessemer announced that he 
could produce splendid cast -steel at about the cost of 
making iron! The announcement was received with 
much incredulity; but the "Bessemer converter" was 
exhibited, the new process shown, and the result seemed 
to confirm the verity of the claim of the inventor. Prac- 
tical difficulties, however, postponed its complete success 
till 1860, when the new process supplanted all others. 

Mr. Bessemer now stood at the head of the inventors 
of the world, and Mr. Gladstone, as Chancellor of the 
Exchequer under Lord Palmerston, had come to be re- 
garded as one of the most skilful governmental financiers 
in Europe, which meant that he was an adept in devising 
schemes of taxation calculated to yield the most revenue 
with the least popular discontent. When it is considered 
that it is necessary for the English Minister of Finance 
to draw from the British people more than a million 
dollars every morning of tlie year, including Sundays, 
before either theEnglisli lord or the English peasant can 
indulge in a free breakfast, the extreme delicacy of 
the duties devolving upon him will be understood and 
appreciated. If he proposes the repeal of the soap tax 
in order to extinguish the slave-trade, he must impose 
an additional penny in the pound on malt liquors in 
order to put an end to the vice of drunkenness. He is 
constantly between Scylla and Charybdis — in keeping 

as the oxidizing agent is dated October 17, 1855, and other three 
months were spent in experimenting before the idea of introducing 
the air from the bottom of a large converter struck him. The patent 
embodying the latter idea is dated February 11, 1856." — " The Cre- 
ators of the Age of Steel, " note to p. 38. By W. T. Jeans. New 
York : Charles Scribner's Sons, 1884. 



166 MIND AND HAND. 

off the one he is in danger of being swallowed up in the 
other. And if he can, at the end of the fiscal year, find 
a million dollars to apply to the liquidation of the public 
debt, he is extremely fortunate. From 1836, about the 
time Mr. Gladstone began his public career, down to 
1877, the several chancellors of the English Exchequer, 
including Mr. Gladstone, contrived to save, in the aggre- 
gate, about twelve million pounds sterling for this purpose. 

Let us recur a moment to the subject of the invention 
of Mr. Bessemer. It went into operation in 1860. The 
temptation to reproduce Mr. Bessemer's own description 
of his process, which revolutionized the manufacture of 
steel, is irresistible. It is as follows : 

"The converting vessel is mounted on an axis at or 
near its centre of gravity. It is constructed of boiler- 
plates, and is lined either with fire-brick, road-drift, or 
gannister, which resists the heat better than any other 
material yet tried, and has also the advantage of cheap- 
ness. The vessel, having been heated, is brought into the 
requisite position to receive its charge of melted metal, 
without either of the tuyeres (or air-holes) being below 
the surface. 'No action can therefore take place until 
the vessel is turned up (so that the blast can enter 
through the tuyeres). The process is thus in an instant 
brought into full activity, and small though powerful 
jets of air spring upward through the fluid mass. The 
air, expanding in volume, divides itself into globules, or 
bursts violently upward, carrying with it some hundred- 
weight of fluid metal, which again falls into the boiling 
mass below. Every part of the apparatus trembles un- 
der the violent agitation thus produced ; a roaring flame 
rushes from the mouth of the vessel, and as the process 
advances it changes its violet color to orange, and finally 



THE POWER OF THE TRAINED HAND. 167 

to a voluminous pure white flame. The sparks, which 
at first were large, like those of ordinary foundery iron, 
change into small hissing points, and these gradually 
give way to soft floating . specks of bluish light as the 
state of malleable iron is approached. TJiere is no 
eruption of cinder as in the early experiments, although 
it is formed during the process ; the improved shape of 
the converter causes it to be retained, and it not only 
acts beneficially on the metal, but it helps to confine the 
heat, which during the process has rapidly risen from 
the comparatively low temperature of melted pig-iron to 
one vastly greater than the highest known welding heats, 
by which malleable iron only becomes sufficiently soft 
to be shaped by the blows of the hammer ; but here it 
becomes perfectly fluid, and even rises so much above 
the melting point as to admit of its being poured from 
the converter into a founder's ladle, and from thence 
to be transferred to several successive moulds." * 

What is the value of this process? What is the ex- 
tent of the service rendered by Mr. Bessemer to man? 
It is estimated that in the twenty-one years first elapsing 
after the successful working of the Bessemer process, the 
production of steel by it, notwithstanding its necessarily 
slow progress, amounted to twenty-five million tons. At 
$200 a ton, the alleged saving in cost as compared with 
the old process, this represents an aggregate saving of 
$5,000,000,000. In 1882 the world's production was 
four million tons, which at the rate named yielded a 
saving of the enormous aggregate of $800,000,000 in a 
single year.^ These sums seem almost fabulous, especial- 
ly so since they result from simply blowing air through 

* " The Creators of the Age of Steel," p. 71. By W. T. Jeans. 
New York : Charles Scribner's Sons, 1884 



168 MIND AND HAND. 

crude melted iron for a quarter of an hour! But the 
radical character of the change wrought in the metal by 
the air-blowing process is shown by the fact that a steel 
rail is worth as much as twenty iron rails."^ 

All the governments of Europe honored Mr. Bessemer 
for his great invention, some by medals and orders of 
merit, and others by appropriating without compensa- 
tion his process of steel-making. Of these latter Prussia 
stood in the front rank. England alone stood aloof. 
" A prophet is not without honor save in his own coun- 
try and among his own kin." From 1860 to 1872 Eng- 
land continued to load Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Disraeli 
with honors, but not until the latter year did the govern- 
ment recognize Mr. Bessemer, when the Prince of Wales 
presented him with the Albert gold medal, and in 1879 
he was knighted by the Queen. 

A comparison between the lives and services to man 
of two of the most distinguished statesmen of England, 
with the life and services, to man, of Sir Henry Bessemer, 
cannot fail to be of great value to every young man who 
possesses the power of just discrimination. But can just 
discrimination be expected of any young man entering 

* " At the Birmingham meeting of the British Association in 1865, 
Sir Henry Bessemer explained that at Chalk Farm steel rails were 
laid down on one side of the line and iron rails on the other, so that 
every engine and carriage there had to pass over both steel and iron 
rails at the same time. When the first face was worn off an iron rail 
it was turned the other way upward, and when the second face was 
worn out it was replaced by a new iron rail. When Sir Henry ex- 
hibited one of these steel rails at Birmingham only one face of it was 
nearly worn out, while on the opposite side of the line eleven iron 
rails had in the same time been worn out on both faces. It thus ap- 
peared that one steel rail was capable of doing the work of twenty- 
three iron ones." — "The Creators of the Age of Steel, "p. 93. By 
W. T. Jeans. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1884. 



i 



THE POWER OF THE TRAINED HAND. 169 

upon the stage of active life when such discrimination 
is not possessed by the public at large ? For example : 
The question being propounded, What is the value of the 
combined services to man of Mr. Gladstone and Mr. 
Disraeli, as compared with those of Sir Henry Besse- 
mer? ninety-nine out of a hundred men of sound judg- 
ment would doubtless say, " The value of the services of 
the two statesmen is quite unimportant, while the value 
of the services of Mr. Bessemer is enormous, incalcula- 
ble." But how many of these ninety-nine men of sound 
judgment could resist the fascination of the applause 
accorded to the statesmen ? How many of them would 
have the moral courage to educate their sons for the 
career of Mr. Bessemer instead of for the career of Mr. 
Disraeli or of Mr. Gladstone?^ E"ot many in the present 
state of public sentiment. It will be a great day for 
man, the day that ushers in tlie dawn of more sober views 
of life, the day that inaugurates the era of the master- 
ship of things in the place of the mastership of words. 

Mr. Gladstone stands for politics and statesmanship at 
their best, and his career is the product of the old system 
of education at its best. Mr. Bessemer stands for science 
and art united, and his career is the product of the new 
education. 



^ But the pecuniary value of Mr. Bessemer's discovery is not the 
consideration of chief import. Its social influence extends to the 
remotest bounds of civilization, and includes the whole human race, 
because it abridges the period of labor necessary to the production 
of a given quantity of useful things, thereby enhancing the sum of 
life's comforts and pleasures. 



170 MIND AND HAND. 



CHAPTER XYI. 

THE INVENTORS, CIVIL ENGINEERS, AND MECHANICS 
OF ENGLAND, AND ENGLISH PROGRESS. 

A Trade is better than a Profession. — The Railway, Telegraph, and 
StearDship are more Potent than the Lawyer, Doctor, and Priest. — 
Book-makers writing the Lives of the Inventors of last Century. — 
The Workshop to be the Scene of the Greatest Triumphs of Man. 
— The Civil Engineers of England the Heroes of English Progress. 
— The Life of James Brindley, the Canal-maker; his Struggles and 
Poverty.— The Roll of Honor.— Mr. Gladstone's Significant Admis- 
sion that English Triumphs in Science and Art were won without 
Government Aid. — Disregarding the Common -sense of the Savage, 
Legislators have chosen to learn of Plato, who declared that "The 
Useful Arts are Degrading, " — How Improvements in the Arts have 
been met by Ignorant Opposition. — The Power wielded by the 
Mechanic. 

The young man with a mechanical trade is better 
equipped for the battle of life than the young man with 
a learned profession. The prizes may not be so dazzling, 
but they are more numerous, and they are within reach. 
The skilled mechanic, with industry and prudence, is sure 
of a cottage, and the cottage may grow into a mansion, 
while the man of letters struggles so often in vain to 
mount the steps of a palace. The railroad, the telegraph, 
and the steamship exert a more potent influence upon 
the destinies of mankind than the lawyer, the doctor, and 
the priest. The giants, steam and electricity, which bear 
the great burdens of commerce, have to be harnessed to 
enable them to do their work ; and to make this harness, 
the furnace, the forge, and the shop are brought into 



INVENTORS AND MECHANICS OF ENGLAND. 171 

requisition. The railroad alone taxes to the utmost nearly 
every department of the useful arts. To the construc- 
tion of the passenger - coach, for instance, more than a 
hundred trades contribute the varied cunning and skill 
of their workmanship. 

This is the age of steel, and he who knows how to 
mould the king of metals into puissant forms has his 
hand nearest the rod of empire. Who would not rather 
be able to construct a Corliss engine than learn the trick 
of drawing a bill in chancery ? 

There was a time, not long ago, when inventors and 
discoverers were little recognized and poorly compen- 
sated for their splendid achievements. But that time is 
past. The book-makers of to-day are groping about the 
old shops where the inventors of last century worked, 
and the cottages where they lived, in order to tell the 
simple story of their lives, and write their names- in the 
temple of fame. Huntsman, who emerged from long 
seclusion over the furnace and crucible, and presented 
to his fellow -workmen a piece of steel which rivalled 
that of old Damascus, and drove from the British mar- 
kets all other steels — how resplendent his name is now! 
How every incident in the life of Watt is sought for — • 
his struggles, his disappointments, and his final success ! 
And so of Mushet, lN"eilson, Bramah, Maudslay, Clement 
Murray, Nasmyth, Stephenson, and Fulton. When Watt 
had devised his engine he found no workmen expert 
enough to make it. Then Maudslay, Clement, and Mur- 
ray invented automatic iron hands and fingers, and en- 
dowed them with almost human intelligence, and far more 
than human precision, and Watt's difficulty was removed. 

The " greasy mechanics '' did more to hasten the world's 
progress in a century — 1740 to 1840 — tlian had been ac- 



1V2 MIND AND HAND. 

complished np to that time by all the statesmen of all 
the dead ages. But those heroes of the workshop had 
none of the opportunities afforded by the manual train- 
ing school of the present age. They toiled many hours 
each day for a shilling or two, and lived in stuffy hovels, 
and puzzled over the a h c oi mechanics by the light of 
a tallow-candle. Some of them gained fortunes, while 
others were robbed of the fruits of genius, and slept in 
unknown graves ; but all their names are treasured and 
honored now. The world moves, and in this age it 
moves always towara a higher appreciation of the value 
of the useful arts. This country is destined to become 
a vast workshop, and in this workshop the best energies, 
the strongest vital forces of the American people are 
eventually to be exerted. How necessary, then, to edu- 
cate the hands as well as the brain of the youth of the 
country.^ 

Mr. Smiles, in his " Lives of the Engineers," has shown 
us the true springs of English greatness. In telling the 
story of the struggles and triumphs of the canal -makers, 
the bridge-builders, the coal-miners, the millwrights, the 
road-makers, the harbor and dock makers, the ship-build- 
ers, the iron and steel makers, and the railway-builders — 
in telling tliis story of persistence, of nerve, and " pluck," 
he has sketched the career of the real heroes of English 
progress. A brief sketch of the life of James Brindley 
will serve to show how these noble men wrought, how 
they suffered, and how they conquered. 

James Brindley was born in 1716. His parents were 
poor. His father was a ne'er-do-well. His mother taught 
him to be honest and industrious. James worked as a 
common laborer till he was seventeen years of age. In 
1733 he became a millwright's apprentice — bound for 



INVENTORS AND MECHANICS OF ENGLAND. 173 

seven years. He was a dull boy, learning slowly, but 
before the end of his " bound " term he became the best 
workman in the neighborhood. He helped the now cel- 
ebrated Wedgwoods out of a difficulty by inventing and 
constructing flint -mills for their works. He invented 
and constructed pumps for clearing the Clifton coal- 
mines of water — an entirely new device that opened coal 
chambers which had long been completely drowned out. 
His compensation for this class of work — the work of 
genius — was two shillings a day ! 

In 1Y55 he built a silk-mill, in which he made several 
important improvements in machinery, etc. But this 
man, who possessed inventive genius of a high order and 
large executive ability, could neither write legibly nor 
spell correctly, and his charge for almost inestimable serv- 
ices was still, in 1757, only two to four shillings a day. 
His struggles to improve the steam-engine form a curious 
chapter in the story of his life. It was to him that the 
Duke of Bridgewater owed his success in canal-making. 

The duke was born in 1736. He was a weak and sick- 
ly child, his mental capacity being apparently defective 
to a degree sufficient to debar him from his inheritance 
of the family title and estates. An affair of the heart 
which resulted unfavorably rendered him morose, and 
changed his whole course of life. He abruptly quitted 
the race-track, where he had condescended even to play 
the role of "jockey," and turned his attention to the im- 
provement of his estates. They contained coal depos- 
its, which he undertook to develop through cheapening 
transportation, and Brindley became his engineer. His 
first canal, consisting largely of aqueducts, was called 
"Brindley's castle in the air," and his "river hung in 
the air." It was this "river hung in the air" — the first 



114: MIND AND HAND. 

English canal — that made the Manchester of to-day pos- 
sible. Another canal enterprise of the duke cost more 
than a million dollars — that connecting Liverpool with 
Manchester. This latter canal yielded £80,000 per an- 
num income, and it was constructed by Brindley at a 
salary of 3^. 6d. a day ! 

Brindley was obstinate, and often quarrelled with his 
employer about the methods of construction of great 
works ; and what is more, the duke always yielded. 
He humbly submitted to every demand made by his 
engineer except a demand for compensation. Brindley's 
" wage " rate during the many years occupied in the 
duke's great canal enterprises was 3^. 6d. per day. This, 
at all events, is the price named by Smiles in his life 
of Brindley. In a note to the work it is, however, stated 
that his stipulated pay was a guinea a day. It is agreed 
on all hands, however, that whatever the rate agreed 
upon was, Brindley was not paid, and that his heirs were 
begging unsuccessfully for his just dues long after his 
death. In a word, Brindley's honor as an engineer being 
at stake, and it being dearer to him than any money 
consideration, he worked for nothing rather than allow 
the enterprise to fail. And the duke was parsimonious 
enough to take the engineer's services for nothing, and 
his heirs were mean enough to refuse payment for such 
services when demanded by his widow. 

In a literary point of view Brindley was ignorant, but 
in no other respect. This was said of him by one of his 
contemporaries : 

"Mr. Brindley is one of those great geniuses whom 
Kature sometimes rears by her own force, and brings to 
maturity without the necessity of cultivation. His whole 
plan is admirable, and so well calculated that he is never 



INVENTOKS AND MECHANICS OF ENGLAND, 175 

at a loss ; for if any difficulty arises he removes it with a 
facility which appears so much like inspiration that you 
would think Minerva was at his fingers' ends."* 

The life of Brindley is typical of a score of biogra- 
phies presented in the "Lives of the Engineers," among 
which the following are especially worthy of mention: 
William Edwards, John Metcalf, John Perry, Sir Hugh 
Myddelton, Cornelius Vermuyden, Andrew Yarranton,t 
Andrew Meikle, John Rennie, John Smeaton, Thomas 
Telford, William Murdock, Dr. D. Papin, Thomas Savery, 
Dud Dudley, Matthew Boulton, and William Symington. 
These, and their natural coadjutors, the discoverers of new 
forces in nature and the inventors of new things in art, the 
iron-workers and tool-makers — these are the great names 
in English history. They are the names without which 
there would have been no English history worth writing. 
Mr. Gladstone once said of them, naming Brindley, Met- 
calf, Smeaton, Rennie, and Telford, "These men who 
have now become famous among us had no mechanics' 
institutes, no libraries, no classes, no examinations to 
cheer them on their way. In the greatest poverty, diffi- 
culties, and discouragements their energies were found 
sufficient for their work, and they have written their 
names in a distinguished page of the history of their 
country." 



* "Lives of the Engineers. '"' By Samuel Smiles. London: .John 
Murray, 1862. Vol. I., " Life of James Brindley." 

f " He was the founder of English political eeonomj^ the first man 
in England who saw and said that peace is better than war, that trade 
is better than plunder, that honest industry is better than martial 
greatness, and that the best occupation of a government is to secure 
prosperity at home, and let other nations alone." — "Elements of Po 
litical Science." By Patrick Edward Dove, Edinburgh: 1854. 



176 MIND AND HAND. 

The admission of Mr. Gladstone that the great achieve- 
ments of these heroes of invention and discovery were 
won without any aid whatever, either from the govern- 
ment or the people of England, is a pregnant fact. It is 
the key-note of this work, the reason why it is written 
and published. 

The neglect of the useful arts by all the governments 
of the world, from the dawn of civilization down to the 
present time, is an impeachment of the common-sense of 
mankind as shown in the conduct of public affairs. The 
civilized man might have learned wisdoni from the sav- 
age, who is taught to fight, to hunt, and to fish, the brain, 
the hand, and the eye being trained simultaneously. But 
he chose to learn of Plato, who in the ''Republic" says to 
Glaucon, " All the useful arts, I believe, we thought de- 
grading." And further in the same work: "We shall 
tell our people, in mythical language, you are doubtless 
all brethren as many as inhabit the city, but the God 
who created you, mixed gold in the composition of such 
of yon as are qualified to rule, which gives them the 
highest value, while in the auxiliaries he made silver an 
ingredient, assigning iron and copper to the cultivators of 
the soil and the other workmen. Therefore, inasmuch as 
you are all related to one another, although your children 
will generally resemble their parents, yet sometimes a 
golden parent will produce a silver child, and a silver 
parent a golden child, and so on, each producing any. 
The rulers, therefore, have received this in charge first 
and above all from the gods, to observe nothing more 
closely, in their character of vigilant guardians, than the 
children that are born, to see which of these metals en- 
ters into the composition of their souls ; and if a child 
be born in their class with an alloy of copper or iron, 



INVENTORS AND MECHANICS OF ENGLAND. 177 

they are to have no manner of pity upon it, but giving 
it the value that belongs to its nature, they are to thrust 
it away into the class of artisans or agriculturists. And 
if, again, among these a child be born with an admixture 
of gold or silver, when they have assayed it they are to 
raise it either to the class of guardians or to that of aux- 
iliaries, because there is an oracle w^hich declares that 
the city shall then perish when it is guarded by iron or 
copper."* 

So ingrained in the public mind has this contempt for 
the artisan and laborer become in the course of ages, that 
notwithstanding the fact of the admitted kingship of 
iron among metals, and notwithstanding the fact that 
without iron the world would almost sink into a state of 
barbarism, still the opposition to the introduction of tool 
practice into the public schools is violent, and most vio- 
lent among those classes who would be most benefited 
by it. Pending consideration of a bill by the Massachu- 
setts Assembly in 1883, providing for the admission of 
manual training to the public-school curriculum, an op- 
ponent of the measure said ; " The introduction of the 
use of tools is only another attempt to deprive the poor- 
er classes of a good education. It is simply an attempt 
to overload the course of studies in the schools so that 
children shall not learn anything ; so that the poor may 
be made poorer, while the children of the rich having a 
good time in the public schools may have their thought 
and health preserved for higher or special education." 

This is a repetition of the old answer of the Inquisition 
to Galileo upon the announcement and defence of his 

* "The Republic of Plato," p. 114. London: Macmillan & Co., 
1881. 



1^8 MIND AND HAND. 

great discovery. He was summoned to Rome, and " ac- 
cused of having taught that the earth moves, that the 
sun is stationary, and of having attempted to reconcile 
these doctrines with the Scriptures." Bruno had been 
driven to and fro over the face of the civilized world, 
and finally burned in the year 1600 for teaching the sys- 
tem of Copernicus. Having the fear of Bruno's fate be- 
fore his eyes, Galileo recanted, and promised neither to 
publish nor defend his theories. But his love of science 
overcame his fear of oppression, and in 1632 he pub- 
lished his " System of the World." Again he was sum- 
moned before the Inquisition, which was destined forever 
after to torment and persecute him. He was driven to 
his knees before the cardinals, consigned to prison, and 
tortured to blindness. After his death in a prison of the 
Inquisition at the age of seventy-seven years, his right to 
make a will was disputed, his body was denied burial in 
consecrated ground, and his friends were prohibited the 
privilege of raising a monument to his memory in the 
Church of Santa Croce in Florence. 

Eighteen hundred years ago a Roman emperor refused 
to sanction the use of improved machinery in the prose- 
cution of a great public work, on the ground that it 
would deprive the poor of employment. 

In 1663 a Dutchman erected a saw-mill in England, 
but the hostility of the workmen compelled its abandon- 
ment. More than a hundred years elapsed before the 
second saw-mill was put in operation in England, and 
that was destroyed by hand-sawyers. 

The Flemish weavers who introduced improved weav- 
ing machinery into England in the seventeenth century 
were met by protests. One of these protests, addressed 
to Parliament, represented that the Flemish weavers had 



INVENTORS AND MECHANICS OF ENGLAND. 179 

"made so bould as to devise engines for working of tape, 
lace, ribbin, and sucli like, wherein one man doth more 
among them than seven Englishe men can doe, so as 
tlieir cheap sale of commodities beggereth all onr Eng- 
lishe artificers of that trade and enricheth them." 

A little more than a hundred years ago, in England, 
when the Sankej Canal, six miles long, was authorized, 
it was upon the express condition that the boats plying 
upon it should be drawn by men only. 

Illustrations of the vis inertioe of ignorance might be 
multiplied indefinitely. Ignorance reverences the past. 
Ignorance never doubts. Ignorance is content ; perfect- 
ly satisfied with its own knowledge, if the paradox may 
be allowed, it never seeks to increase it. But it is sus- 
picious. In every effort to enlighten it discovers a con- 
spiracy to undermine. IncajDable of the intellectual ef- 
fort of inquiry, it stagnates, and regards as a deadly enemy 
those who seek to disturb the serenity of its muddy pool. 

When labor was only another name for a state of slav- 
ery, to teach men to labor skilfully was merely to raise 
them to a little higher grade of servitude. Hence it is 
only at a very recent period that it has occurred to man- 
kind to teach skilled labor in the schools. All educa- 
tional systems, our own among the rest, seem to have 
been intended to make lawyers, doctors, priests, states- 
men, litterateurs, poets. But this is the age of steel, the 
age of machines and machinery. Tremendous forces in 
nature have been discovered and utilized, and these dis- 
coveries and their utilization have so multiplied vast en- 
terprises that the importance of the mere ornamental 
branches of learning is dwarfed in their presence. Tliis 
is the practical age, and an educational system which is 
not practical is nothing. We shall still have our Tenny- 



180 MIND AND HAND. 

sons, and our Longfellows, and our doctors of abstract 
philosophy ; but there is little time to sentimentalize with 
the poets or speculate with the philosophers. There is 
work to do."^ The mine is to be explored and its treasures 
brought to the surface; more and more powerful ma- 
chines are to be constructed to bear the burdens of com- 
merce ; new elements of force are to be discovered and 
applied to the constantly increasing wants of mankind.* 

On the subject of the demand for a more comprehen- 
sive educational system, Col. Augustus Jacobson says, 
with great force, " Youth is the exj^ensive period of 
man's existence. Youth produces nothing and eats all 
the time. If the youth is not trained there can hardly 
be a profit to mankind on his existence. As mankind is 
liable for, and bound to pay, his expenses, he should be 
so trained that he may repay them. He can only become 
a profitable investment by training. If he is left un- 
skilled, the money spent on him is wasted. There is 
no profit on a whole generation of Spaniards or Turks. 
Mankind should be wise enough to reap the profit there 
always is in finishing raw material, by making human 
raw material into a highly finished product." 

There are millions of intelligent little children in 
the public schools of the United States, receiving, 

* " To know the ' use ' either of land or tools you must know what 
useful things can be grown from the one and made with the other. 
And therefore to know what is useful, and what useless, and be skil- 
ful to provide the one, and wise to scorn the other, is the first need 
for all industrious men. Wherefore, I propose that schools should 
be established wherein the use of land and tools shall be taught con- 
clusively—in other words, the sciences of agriculture (with associated 
river and sea culture), and the noble arts and exercises of humanity. — 
"Fors Clavigera,"p. 302. Part. III. By John Ruskin, LL.D. New 
York: John Wiley & Sons, 1881. 



INVENTORS AND MECHANICS OF ENGLAND. 181 

doubtless, exceTlent intellectual or mental training. But 
they are not being trained for the actual duties of life as 
the savage cliild is taught to fight, to fish, and to hunt. 
They are not taught to labor with their hands, either 
skilfully or unskilfully. They are not given instruction 
in any department of the useful arts, notwithstanding 
the fact that in the case of a vast majority of them the 
alternative of earning their bread by the labor of their 
unskilled hands, or resorting to their wits for a support, 
will be presented immediately on their entrance upon 
the stage of active life. The apprentice system gave 
skilled mechanics to England, and her splendid man- 
ufacturing establishments are the result. The trained 
English apprentice became an inventor, and his inven- 
tions and art discoveries studded the island with workshops 
filled with automatic product-multiplying machinery. 

The savage of Australia in Captain Cook's time could 
kill a pigeon with a spear at thirty yards, but he couldn't 
count the fingers on his right hand. The Southern Es- 
quimau turns a somersault in the water in his boat with 
ease. But his more Northern brother has no canoe, and 
is ignorant of the existence of a boat ; he has no use for 
a boat, because the sea in the latitude of his home is 
frozen the entire year. The savage is taught what he 
needs to know in his condition, and is taught nothing 
else ; hence his skill in the few avocations he pursues. 

The civilized boy in school is taught many theories, 
but is not required to put any of them in practice ; hence 
he enters upon the serious duties of life unprepared to 
discharge any of them.* It may be said that he is in 

* Discussion of the subject of technical education at a meeting of 
the Society of Arts, London, England, 1885. 
Dr. Gladstone, F.R.S. : "It should be their aim in [elementary 



182 MIND AND HAND. 

real danger of the penitentiary until he learns a profes- 
sion or a trade. "Of four hundred and eighty -seven 
convicts consigned to the State Prison for the Eastern Dis- 
trict of Pennsylvania in 1879, five-sixths had attended pub-' 
lie schools, and the same number were without trades." 
It is noticeable also that during the same period "not 
five were received who were what are called mechanics." 
In the penitentiary of the State of Illinois four out of 
five of the convicts have no handicraft. The fact that 
the skilled workman is far more likely than the common 
laborer to keep out of the penitentiary is a powerful 
argument in favor of joining manual training to the 
mental exercises of our common schools. 

The general adoption of a comprehensive system of 
mechanical education in the public schools would quickly 
dispel the unworthy prejudice against labor which taints 
the minds of the youth of the country. The splendid 
career which this age opens to the educated mechanic 
should be made clear to the vision of every boy in the 
land, and he will see, in the tools he is taught to 

schools] to give sucli a notion of the value of materials and the use 
of tools as could afterwards be turned to use in any required direc- 
tion. There were two great difficulties in the way of doing this. 
The first and greatest was the inveterate notion that education con- 
sisted of book-learning. . . . Another difficulty was the ignorance of 
teachers in this respect. If an endeavor were made to introduce 
some knowledge of science into schools, they generally found that 
the teachers had some kind of theoretical knowledge, but it had been 
obtained mainly from books ; and what was chiefiy wanted was that 
things should be taught as well as words and before words." 

Prof. Guthrie, F.E.S. : "This method of bringing the hand and 
the mind to work together really lay at the basis of all true tech- 
nical instruction; where the mind alone was employed the knowl- 
edge acquired passed away, but when the mind and the hand had 
been educated together the knowledge was never forgotten." 



INVENTORS AND MECHANICS OF ENGLAND. 183 

handle, the key not only to fan- success, but to wealth 
and fame. Professor Thurston, President of the Ameri- 
can Society of Mechanical Engineers, thus sums up the 
miglity power wielded by the mechanic: 

" The class of men from whose ranks the membership 
of this society is principally drawn direct the labors of 
nearly three millions of j)rosperous people in three hun- 
dred thousand mills, with $2,500,000,000 capital ; they 
direct the payment of more than $1,000,000,000 in annual 
wages ; the consumption of $3,000,000,000 worth of raw 
material, and the output of $5,000,000,000 worth of man- 
ufactured products. Fifty thousand steam-engines, and 
more than as many water-wheels, at their command turn 
the machinery of these hundreds of thousands of work- 
shops that everywhere dot our land, giving the strength 
of three million horses night or day."* 

* Inaugural address, as President of the American Society of En- 
gineers, New Yorli, November 4, 1880. 

^ "Deeds are greater tlian words. Deeds have such a life, mute 
but undeniable, and grow as living trees and fruit-trees do; they 
people the vacuity of Time, and mal^e it green and worthy." — 
"Past and Present," p. 139. By Thomas Carlyle. London: Chap- 
man & Hall. 

^ "Natural science is the point of interest now, and I think it is 
dimming and extinguishing a good deal that was called poetry. 
These sublime and all-reconciling revelations of nature will exact 
of poetry a correspondent height and scope, or put an end to it." 
— Letter of R. W. Emerson to Anna C. L. Botta, " Memoirs of — . 
By her friends," 8vo, pp. 4o9<, J. Selwin, Tait & Sons. 



184: MIND AND HAND 



CHAPTER XVII. 

POWER OF STEAM AND CONTEMPT OF ARTISANS. 

A few Million People now wield twice as much Industrial Power as 
all the People on the Globe exerted a Hundred Years ago. — A 
Revolution wrought, not by the Schools and Colleges, but by the 
Mechanic. — The Union between Science and Art prevented by the 
Speculative Philosophy of the Middle Ages. — Statesmen, Lawyers, 
Litterateurs, Poets, and Artists more highly esteemed than Civil 
Engineers, Mechanics, and Artisans. —The Refugee Artisan a Pow- 
er in England, the Refugee Politician worthless. — Prejudice against 
the Artisan Class shown by Mr. Galton in his Work on " Hereditary 
Genius."— The Influence of Slavery: it has lasted Thousands of 
Years, and still Survives. 

What the civil engineers and mechanics of England 
have done^for that country the same classes here have 
done for America. It is by these classes that all civilized 
countries have been made prosperous and great. And 
the agent through which the power of man has been 
augmented a thousand-fold is steam. "In the manufact- 
ures of Great Britain alone, the power which steam ex- 
erts is estimated to be equal to the manual labor of four 
hundred millions of men, or more than double the num- 
ber of males supposed to inhabit the globe.""^ This is the 
most significant fact of all time, namely, that a few mill- 
ions of people in a small island now wield twice as much 
industrial power as all the people on the globe exerted 
one hundred years ago. And it is a fact of the utmost 



* "Brief Biographies: James Watt," p. 1. By Samuel Smiles. 
Chicago : Belford, Clark & Co., 1883, 



POWER OF STEAM AND CONTEMPT OF ARTISANS. 185 

significance that the public educational institutions of 
England contributed scarcely anything to this industrial 
revohition, whose influence now comprehends all civilized 
countries. The men by whom it was wrought came not 
from the classic shades of the universities, but from the 
foundery, the forge, and the machine-shop. There has 
been very little change in educational methods since the 
time when Bacon said, " They learn nothing at the univer- 
sities but to believe." He proposed that a college be es- 
tablished and devoted to the discovery of new truth. 'No 
such college has, however, been established, but many new 
truths have been discovered. Suppose all the universities 
of England, of the United States, and of all other highly 
civilized countries had, from the time of Bacon, been 
conformed to his ideas, and devoted to the discovery of 
new truths? Such a course would have united science 
and art, and insured vastly greater progress, no doubt, 
than that which has actually taken place. The union of 
science with art has thus far been rendered impossible 
by reason of the wide prevalence of purely speculative 
views. The speculative philosophy of the Middle Ages 
still projects its baleful influence over our institutions of 
learning. Abstract ideas are still regarded as of more 
vital importance than things. Statesmen, lawyers, litte- 
rateurs, poets, and artists are more highly esteemed than 
civil engineers, machinists, and artisans. Mr. Smiles, in 
his excellent work on the Huguenots, has shown that 
England owes to the French and the Flemish immigrants 
" almost all her industrial arts and very much of the most 
valuable life-blood of her modern race.""^ Commenting 

* "In short, wherever the refugees settled they acted as so many 
missionaries of skilled work, exhibiting the best practical examples of 
diligence, industry, and thrift, and teaching the English people in the 



186 MIND AND HAND. 

upon this fact in liis work on " Hereditary Genius," Mr. 
Francis Galton says, 

" There has been another emigration from France of 
not unequal magnitude, but followed by very different re- 
sults, namely, that of the revolution of 1789. It is most 
instructive to contrast the effects of the two. The Prot- 
estant emigrants were able men, and have profoundly 
influenced for good both our breed and our history ; on 
the other hand, the political refugees had but poor aver- 
age stamina, and have left scarcely any traces behind 
them.""^ 

This is the testimony of a distinguished student of 
biology ; and it is to the effect that the refugee artisan is 
of immense value to the country where he finds an asy- 
lum, while the refugee politician is of no value at all. 
We should naturally say, our author having made this 
important discovery will enlarge upon it. First of all, 
he will deduce the conclusion that if the refugee politi- 
cian is of no value to the country where he finds an asy- 
lum, the home politician is an equally unimportant factor 
in the social problem. Then he will make an exhaustive 
study of the industrial class as the chief basis of his prop- 
ositions and speculations on the subject of the science of 
life. 'Not at alL Mr. Galton, in his work on " Hered- 
itary Genius," offers another striking illustration of the 
repressive force of habit and the influence of popular 
prejudice. In his classifications of men according to 

most effective manner the beginnings of those various industrial arts 
in which they have since acquired so much distinction and wealth." — 
"The Huguenots," p. 107. By Samuel Smiles. New York: Har- 
per & Brothers, 1867. 

* "Hereditary Genius," p. 360. By Francis Galton, F.R.S., etc. 
New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1880. 



POWER OF STEAM AND CONTEMPT OF ARTISANSo 187 

their professions, with a view to the inquiry whether 
"genius, talent, or whatever we term great mental ca- 
pacity, follows the law of organic transmission — runs in 
families, and is an affair of blood and breed " — in such 
classifications Mr. Galton forgets for the time being that 
there is an industrial class. He runs through the entire 
social scale, from " the judges of England between 1660 
and 1865," not omitting Lord Jeffreys, down through 
statesmen, commanders, literary men, poets, musicians, 
men of science, painters, divines, the boys in Cambridge, 
oarsmen, and wrestlei's of the ISTorth Country, but has 
no word to say of the civil engineers, or of the invent- 
ors — those immortal men whose monuments in stone 
and iron exist in every corner of England. 

Buckles's caustic remark, "the most valuable addi- 
tions made to legislation have been enactments destruc- 
tive of preceding legislation, and the best laws which 
have been passed have been those in which some former 
laws have been repealed," does not apply to the works 
of the civil engineers, inventors, and mechanics of Eng- 
land or of any other country. Their works live after 
them and never fail to reflect honor upon them. The 
"acts" of the inventor may be amended but they are 
never repealed. Each inventive step, however short and 
apparently unimportant, constitutes a substantial link in 
the chain of progress ; and it is a substantial link, be- 
cause it invariably contains a hint of the next sequen- 
tial step. 

Mr. Galton is an original thinker of great power, and 
an untiring investigator. In contrasting the politician 
with the artisan he discriminates admirably. He finds 
that the politician is of no value, practically, to the com- 
munity, while the artisan is of almost inestimable value ; 



188 MIND AND HAND. 

and this conclusion he states curtly, without appearing to 
care a rush for the public sentiment which reverences 
politics and so-called statesmanship. But when he '' makes 
up his jewels," so to speak, on the subject of " hereditary 
genius," Mr. Galton, as already remarked, forgets that it 
is worth while to consider the class of men who in the 
last hundred years have literally almost created a new 
world. Why is this? The late Mr. Horace Mann an- 
swered the question long ago, and he answered it so well 
that his answer is here reproduced in extenso : " Man- 
kind had made great advances in astronomy, in geome- 
try, and other mathematical sciences, in the writing of 
history, in oratory and in poetry, in painting and in 
sculpture, and in those kinds of architecture which may 
be called regal or religious, centuries before the great 
mechanical discoveries and inventions which now bless 
the w^orld were brought to light; and the question has 
often forced itself upon reflecting minds why there was 
this jprejposterousness^ this inversion of what would ap- 
pear to be the natural order of progress ? Why was it, 
for instance, that men should have learned the courses 
of the stars and the revolution of the planets before they 
found out how to make a good wagon-wheel ? Why was 
it that they built the Parthenon and the Coliseum be- 
fore they knew how to construct a comfortable, healthful 
dwelling-house? Why did they build the Roman aque- 
ducts before they framed a saw-mill ? Or why did they 
achieve the noblest models in eloquence, in poetry, and 
in the drama before they invented movable types? I 
think we have arrived at a point where we can unriddle 
this enigma. The labor of the world has been performed 
by ignorant men, by classes doomed to ignorance from 
sire to son ; by the bondmen and the bondwomen of the 



POWER GF STEAM AND CONTEMPT OF ARTISANS. 189 

Jews, by the helots of Sparta, by the captives who passed 
under the Roman yoke, and by the villeins and serfs and 
slaves of more modern times." 

When the great educational reformer of Massachu- 
setts thus graphically pointed out slavery as the cause of 
the contempt in which the useful arts had been held 
from the dawn of history, four millions of men were 
kept in bondage and compelled to toil under the lash 
by one of the most enlightened nations of the earth. 
Later thirteen millions of people pledged "their lives, 
their fortunes, and their sacred honor" to the perpetua- 
tion of slavery, and half a million soldiers marched re- 
peatedly to battle to do or die in behalf of the right (?) 
of one man to buy and sell the bodies of his fellow-men. 

There is, then, a logical reason for Mr. Galton's neg- 
lect of the artisan class. Slavery in its most odious form 
not only existed in the heart of a so-called "free" nation 
twenty -five years ago, but dared Liberty to a deadly 
contest. Nor were the upholders of slavery without 
moral support among the governments and peoples of 
the world. The government of England, of which Mr. 
Galton is a subject, under cover of a pretended neu- 
trality aided the American slaveholders' Confederacy in 
sweeping Freedom's ships from the sea ; and the great 
families of England, the families cited by Mr. Galton in 
support of his proposition that genius "is an affair of 
blood and breed " — those great families were well pleased 
when Freedom's ships went down and Freedom's armies 
retreated before the assaults of the slave confederacy. 

This somewhat extended reference to Mr. Galton is 
not intended to impugn his good faith as an author. Its 
design is simply to show that the influence of slavery is 
not yet extinct ; that it still moulds ideas, controls habits 



190 MIND AND HAND. 

of thought, inspires literary men, and permeates litera- 
ture. In a word, the cause of the contempt in which 
the useful arts were held in Babylon in the time of He- 
rodotus was in full force in this country down to the 
date of the issuance of Mr. Lincoln's proclamation of 
emancipation ; and it is scarcely necessary to observe 
that the British Constitution grew out of the feudal sys- 
tem, which was only another name for slavery. It is a 
proverb in England to this day that it is safer to shoot a 
man than a hare ; and the sentiment of the proverb is a 
complete justification of human bondage, since it implies 
that property rights are more sacred than the rights of 
man. Thus slavery has kept its brand of shame upon 
the useful arts for thousands of years, and the mind of 
man has been so deeply impressed thereby that it does 
not react now that slavery is extinct. Like the slave re- 
leased from bondage, who still feels the chain, still winces 
and shrinks from the imaginary scourge, the mind of 
man continues to revolve automatically in the old chan- 
nels/ 

* " It is related of the Scythians that they became involved in a 
contest with the descendants of certain of their slaves, who success- 
fully resisted them in several battles, whereupon one of them said: 
'Men of Scythia, what are we doing? By fighting with our slaves, 
both we ourselves by being slain become fewer in number, and by 
killing them we shall hereafter have fewer to rule over. Now, 
therefore, it seems to me that we should lay aside our spears and 
bows, and that everyone, taking a horsewhip, should go directly to 
them; for so long as they saw us with arms, they considered them- 
selves equal to us, and born of equal birth; but when they shall 
see us with our whips instead of arms, they will soon learn that 
they are our slaves, and being conscious of that will no longer re- 
sist.' The Scythians, having heard this, adopted the advice; and the 
slaves, struck with astonishment at what was done, forgot to fight 
and fled."— Herodotus, "Melpomene," IV. §§ 3, 4. New York- 
Harper & Brothers, 1883. 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 191 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

AUTOMATIC CONTRASTED WITH SCIENTIFIC 
EDUCATION. 

The Past tyrannizes over the Present by Interposing the Stolid Re- 
sistance of Habit. — Habits of Thought like Habits of the Body 
become Automatic. —There is much Freedom of Speech but very 
little Freedom of Thought : Hal)it, Tradition, and Reverence for 
Antiquity forbid it. — The Schools educate Automatically. — A glar- 
ing Defect of the Schools shown by Mr. John S. Clark, of Boston. 
— The Automatic Character of the Popular System of Education 
shown by the Quincy (Mass.) Experiment. — Several Intelligent 
Opinions to the same Effect. — The Public Schools as an Industrial 
Agency a Failure. — A Conclusive Evidence of the Automatic 
and Superficial Character of prevailing Methods of Education in 
the Schools of a large City. — The Views of Colonel Francis W. 
Parker.— Scientific Education is found in the Kindergarten and 
the Manual Training School. — "The Cultivation of Familiarity 
betwixt the Mind and Things." — Colonel Augustus Jacobson on 
the Effect of the New Education. 

All reforms must encoimter the stolid resistance of 
habit. It is not less tyrannical because it is a negative 
force. It braces itself and holds back with all its might. 
It is in this manner that the past dominates the present. ^ 
This automatic habit of mind is precisely like certain 
automatic habits of the body which operate quite inde- 
pendently of any act of volition. For example : " When 
we move about in a room with the objects in which we 
are quite familiar, we direct our steps so as to avoid 
them, without being conscious what they are or what we 
are doing ; we see them, as we easily discover if we try 
to move about in the same way with our eyes shut, but 



192 MIND AND HAND. 

we do not perceive them, the mind being full j occupied 
with some train of thought."* In the same way the 
mind under certain conditions becomes an automaton, 
constantly revolving old thoughts after the causes that 
gave rise to them have ceased to operate. Piano-forte 
playing affords an excellent illustration of this automatic 
action of the mind. ''A pupil learning to play the piano- 
forte is obliged to call to mind each note, but the skil- 
ful player goes through no such process of conscious 
remembrance ; his ideas, like his movements, are auto- 
matic, and both so rapid as to surpass the rapidity of 
succession of conscious ideas and movements."'}' 

Freedom of speech and freedom of thought are catch- 
penny phrases. There is much of the former, but very 
little of the latter. Speech is generally the result of au- 
tomatic thought rather than of ratiocination. Indepen- 
dent thought is of all mental processes the most difficult 
and the most rare ; habit, tradition, and reverence for 
antiquity unite to forbid it, and these combined influ- 
ences are strengthened by the law of heredity. The ten- 
dency to automatic action of the mind is still further 
promoted by the environment of modern life. The 
crowding of populations into cities, and the division and 
subdivision of labor in the factory and the shop, and 
even in the so-called learned professions, have a tenden- 
cy to increase the dependence of the individual upon the 
mass of society. And this interdependence of the units 
of society renders them more and more imitative, and 
hence more and more automatic both mentally and phys- 
ically. 

* "Body and Mind," p. 2.2. By Henry Maudsley, M.D. New 
York: D. Appleton & Co., 1883. 
f Ibid., p. 26. 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 193 

Another powerful influence contributes to the same 
end. The schools educate automatically. They train 
the absorbing powers of the brain, but fail to cultivate 
the faculties of assimilation and re-creation, and neglect 
ahnost wholly to develop the power of expression. Mr. 
John S. Clark, of Boston, has made this point of the 
failure of the schools to train the brain-power of expres- 
sion to its utmost, so plain that it is here reproduced in 
full, as follows : 

" Studying the functions of the brain, we find that for 
educational purposes it may be likened to an organism 
with a threefold form of working, an organism with a 
power of absorption, a power of assimilation and re-crea- 
tion, and a power of expressing or giving out. The 
force or character of a brain is measured entirely by its 
expressing power, by what comes out of it. Examining 
a little closer, we find that the brain absorbs through all 
the five senses, while for expressing purposes it makes 
use of but two of these senses, or rather of but two 
organs of these senses — 
the tongue and the hand. 
Fig. 1 is a simple dia- 

, • -| • live OCilBCS. \ JL rry 

gram representing a brain ^-__^\^ ^<^^^^e. 

with the f^vQ senses placed 
on one side, as means of 1 Fi^^ 1. 

absorbing power, while on 

the other side the tongue and the hand are placed as 
organs of expressing power. The other function of 
the brain, that of assimilation and re-creation, cannot of 
course be graphically represented. It may, however, be 
said to be the result of the action of the other two func- 
tions. Now, the equipping of a brain, or the healthy 
education of a brain, consists in giving it expressing 




194 MIND AND HAND. 

power through the tongue and the hand, coextensive 
with the power of absorption and the power of re- 
creation. 

Applying onr popular schemes of education to the 
brain, and especially those based on the 3-R idea of edu- 
cation, we find wdiat is indicated in Fig. 2, that provision 
has been made for greatly distending the absorbing side 
of the brain, while for the expressing side, the practical 
side, provision has been limited to the use of the tongue 
in speech and to the hand in writing. If now we follow 
the result of this brain equipment into practical life, we 
find that speech and writing, as means for expressing 



Reading. 
Mathematics. 




Geography. 
Grammar. 


Five Senses 


History. 
Languages. 
Physiology. 
Literature. 


1 ^ 


Natural History. 
Theoretical Sciences. 






-Writing. 

Fig. 2. 

thought, have their applications mainly in the commer- 
cial and financial employments and the professions, and 
only incidentally in the industrial and mechanical em- 
ployments. With such an inadequate and one-sided 
brain equipment it is not possible in any broad, prac- 
tical way to bring thought or brain-power to the service 
of industry. The fact so generally admitted, that we 
are getting so few intelligent artisans or mechanics from 
our scheme of public education, that we turn out pupils 
of both sexes with a decided repugnance to industrial 
labor, is an attestation to the truth of this statement. 
The simple fact is that our education is not broad 
enough on the expressing side of the brain, that too 
much attention has been given to the absorbing side of 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 195 

this organ, that no adequate provisions have been made 
whereby it can discharge its power in work connected 
with the industries. 

" In Fig. 3 a remedy for this defect is indicated in the 
addition of the study of graphic and sesthetic art, through 
drawing, and of training in the manual arts, to the pre- 
vious brain equipment. Observe where these features 
come in the scheme — on the expressing side of the brain 
and in the service of the hand, thus giving the brain 
ample power to discharge thought in its most complete 
form for use or for beauty. With these features added 
to the brain equipment its power of expressing thought 



Reading. 

Mathematics. 

Geography. 

Grammar. 

History. 

Languages. 

Physiology. 

Literature. * 

Natural History. 

Theoretical Sciences. 

Practical Sciences. 




Hand.\ f Writing. 
Drawing. 
Manual Arts. 



in all practical directions will be coextensive with its ab- 
sorbing and re-creating powers; and just as soon as the 
public can clearly see that in the outcome of our public 
education there is no respecting of persons or of classes, 
that pupils are trained for honest labor with their hands 
as well as to living by their wits, are taught to produce 
something, to create values by the action of their brain 
through the work of their hands, a much deeper interest 
in public education will not only be manifested, but gen- 
erous provisions for its support will also be given."* 
The charge that the schools educate automatically 



* Address delivered before the Philadelphia Board of Trade and 
the Franklin Institute, June 6, 1881. 



196 MIND AND HAND. 

rather than rationally is of such vital importance that 
it should be sustained by the best attainable proof. 
Strong proof is at hand in the history of the so-called 
Quincy (Mass.) experiment. 

In 1878 doubt of the efficiency of the schools of Nor- 
folk County, long indulged, culminated in action by the 
Association of School Committees and Superintendents. 
It was insisted by certain members of the committee that 
the existing methods were "about as good as human in- 
telligence could devise," and by others that the people 
were getting " no adequate returns for the money ex- 
pended under the system in general use." It was re- 
solved to institute a searching investigation, and the 
standard for the measurement of the acquirements of 
pupils adopted was, "a reasonable degree of ability to 
read, to write legibly, correctly, and grammatically, and 
to deal readily with simple mathematics after about eight 
years of schooling." 

The association selected Mr. George A. "Walton, an 
experienced educator, to make the examination of the 
schools of the county, and the number of pupils exam- 
ined exceeded three thousand. In their preface to Mr. 
Walton's report the gentlemen of the association say : 

"Publicity, discussion, and discontent are wholesome 
things to apply to school management in Massachusetts. 
That this is a fair sample of the results now accomplished 
cannot be questioned. But though they may not be flat- 
tering to our pride, we yet believe that they are as good 
as can be obtained in any other county in Massachusetts, 
or, indeed, of any other State where similar tests are 
applied in a similar manner. If any school authorities 
elsewhere doubt the truth of this statement, let the ex- 
periment be tried in the schools of their county. 



i 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 197 

" The questions naturally arise, What is the cause of 
this lamentable ignorance? and what is the remedy? 
The answer to the former suggests the reply to the latter. 
Too much has been attempted in the schools. There 
has been a slavisli adherence to text-books, and no room 
given for freedom and originality of thought. Rules 
have been memorized, and the children taught to recite 
from the text-book, while they have not had the slightest 
conception of the true meaning of the subject. . . . 

" The rules and exceptions in grammar are faithfully 
committed to memory, and most intricate sentences can 
be successfully analyzed, the phrases separated, and the 
modifiers named in true grammatical style, w^hile the pu- 
pils who have undergone such severe training in this re- 
spect are unable to present their own thoughts concisely 
or clearly, or even correctly, upon paper. The memory 
is cultivated, and the reason allowed to slumber. 

" In arithmetic the pupils show a readiness to solve 
a problem when they are able to fit it to some rule that 
they have learned ; but when they are given a simple 
question out of the regular course, they are like a ship at 
sea without rudder or compass." 

This is the severest and most sweeping criticism ever 
passed upon our American common-school system, and it 
emanates from its friends and the friends of universal 
education. 

Mr. Walton says of reading, as taught in the Norfolk 
County schools, " As for any systematic analysis by which 
the pupil learns to make a careful and independent study 
of his piece, it is but little practised in the schools even 
of the grammar grade ;" and he declares that reading, 
without comprehending the ideas of which the words 
are mere signs, "is not merely useless, but dangerous, 



198 MIND AND HAND. 

just in proportion to the facility with which the words 
are called." 

Of the results of his examinations in penmanship Mr. 
Walton says, " Most of the faults in the writing indicate 
imperfect teaching." Of his examinations in spelling he 
says that "the commonest words are misspelled when used 
in sentences or composition, while words of difficult or- 
thography are spelled with accuracy when dictated for 
spelling." For example, he says, " The words ' whose,' 
' which,' and ' father,' when spelled orally, were generally 
correct, but when written in sentences they were fre- 
quently, in many schools, in a majority of cases, errone- 
ous." 1^0 test could more clearly demonstrate the purely 
mechanical character of the methods of instruction than 
this of a comparison between the pupils' oral and written 
spelling. The average of excellence in spelling the three 
simple words " which, whose, scholar," of the primary 
grade for the whole county of Norfolk, as found by Mr. 
Walton, was the exceedingly low one of 55.9, the basis 
being 100. 

The ingenuity in bad spelling of this grade of pupils, 
who had been at least four years in school, is well illus- 
trated by the example of the word " carriage," written 
as follows : " Garage, carrage, craidge, caradg, carege, car- 
riag, carrige ;" and of the word " sleigh," written " saly, 
slay, slaig, slaigh, slagh, slaw, sleig, sleugh, sleight, sligh, 
sley, slew, slave, sleygh ;" and of the word " Tuesday," 
written " Tusgay, tuestay, toesday ;" and of the word 
" Wednesday," written " wanesday, wedenyday, Wederns- 
day, wednest, Wenday, Wendsday, wensday, wenesday, 
wensdaw, wenze, Wenzie, Wendsstay, wenstday, Wesday, 
Whensday, winday, Windday, Winsday," etc. 

The word " scholar " presented one hundred and sixty 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 199 

different erroneous spellings ; that of " depot " fifty, among 
which were the following : "Deappow, deppowe, deaphow, 
deapohoe, teapot, doopo," and " bepo." An exercise in 
spelling by both grades of pupils, the "primary," com- 
posed of pupils from eight and a half to ten and a half 
years old, and the "grammar," composed of pupils from 
twelve and a half to fifteen and a half years old, showed 
errors of which the following are examples : Any, spelled 
ane and enny ; along, alond and alon ; amongst, amunt ; 
animals, anables ; aritlimetic, rithmes ; asked, asted ; heaio- 
tiful, beuful; heen, ben, bene, and bin ; hy-and-hy, bimeby; 
coat, coot, coth, cote, goat, and coate ; Boston, bostone ; 
hoy, poy, and bou ; city, sitty ; eggs, ages ; custard -pie, 
custed puy ; coming, comin, commun, gomming, and 
comming. 

An exercise in composition developed the following 
specimen errors : " The was two boys ; They was two 
boys ; How is all the boys ? Things that was good ; They 
is not many here I know ; He come to school ; I see him 
yesterday ; He asked cyrus what he done that day ; I had 
saw him ; he had wore a coat," etc. 

The examinations in mathematics yielded similar re- 
sults to those developed in reading, writing, spelling, and 
composition. Mr. Walton says, " If instead of this [the 
routine method of the school] the pupil should be com- 
pelled to deal with real things, and to find his answer by 
studying the conditions of his problem, the fiction which 
arithmetic now is to most pupils would become to them 
a reality."* 

* "The New Departure in the Common Schools of Qiiincy," by 
Charles F. Adams, Jr., and the "Report of Examination of Schools 
in Norfolk County, Mass.," by George A. Walton. Boston : Estes 
& Lauriat, 1881. 



200 MIND AND HAND. 

The prime difficulty is here stated. The schools deal 
in "fictions." In the language of the Norfolk County 
committee, "The memory is cultivated and the reason 
allowed to slumber." ISTow, if to every fact memorized 
the pupil were required to apply the test of reason to 
analyze it and find out its relation to other facts, and fix 
it with all its relations in his mind, he would possess cer- 
tain solid information of an ascertained practical value. 
It is very simple. It is making the pupil think for him- 
self by showing him how to think for himself instead 
of thinking for him. Of course this is object-teaching. 
In the reading-lesson the pupil is required to know the 
meaning of the words of which it is composed in or- 
der to read with correct expression. When required 
to spell a word orally he is also required to write it. 
In the study of arithmetic he is shown certain objects, 
blocks of cubical and other forms, and required to ap- 
ply the rules of the book to the ascertainment of their 
contents. In grammar the analysis of the sentence is 
followed by the writing of it, and the construction of 
other sentences involving similar principles in the art of 
composition, and so on. 

This is the kindergarten system now rapidly coming 
into high favor as an essential preliminary step in educa- 
tion. It is also the system of the manual training school. 
Under this system the pupil is not merely told that the 
saw is a thin, flat piece of steel with teeth used for cut- 
ting boards and timbers ; a saw is placed in his hand and 
he is taught to use it : and so of all the hand and ma- 
chine tools of the trades. He stands at the forge, bends 
over the moulding-form, shoves the plane in the carpen- 
ter-shop, presides at the turning-lathe, that ingenious in- 
vention of Maudslay — an automaton truer than the human 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 201 

eye, more cunning and more accurate than the human 
liand ; executes plans for patterns and then makes the 
patterns, and finally, from the faint lines he has traced 
on paper, constructs a machine, breathes the breath of life 
(steam) into its veins, and with it moves mountains ! 

In further sui>port of the charge that the schools edu- 
cate automatically, and hence superficially, the following 
intelligent opinions are cited : 

Charles Francis Adams, Jr., remarks that the com- 
mon schools of Massachusetts cost $4,000,000 a year; 
and adds, "The imitative or memorizing faculties only 
are cultivated, and little or no attention is paid to the 
thinking or reflective powers. Indeed it may almost be 
said that a child of any originality or with individual 
characteristics is looked upon as wholly out of place in a 
public school. ... To skate is as difficult as to write; 
probably more difficult. Yet in spite of hard teaching 
in the one case and no teaching in the other, the boy can 
skate beautifully, and he cannot write his native tongue 
at all."* 

Mr. Edward Atkinson says, "We are training no 
American craftsmen, and unless we devise better meth- 
ods than the old and now obsolete apprentice system, 
much of the perfection of our almost automatic mech- 
anism will have been achieved at the cost not only of the 
manual but also of the mental development of our men. 
Our almost automatic mills and machine-shops will be- 
come mental stupefactories."t 

Prof. Barbour, of Yale College, says, "Our schools are 

*"ScieutijBc Common-school Education." — Harper's Ilagazine, 
November, 1880, (see note 2 at end of chapter). 

f "Elementary Instruction in the Mechanic Arts." — Scribner's 
Monthly, April 1881, p. 902. 



202 MIND AND HAND. 

suffering from congestion of the brain : too much thought 
and too little putting it in practice." 

An English observer of our public schools says, " They 
teach apparently for information, almost regardless of de- 
velopment. This system develops no special individual- 
ity or power, forms few habits of observation, benefits 
little except the memory, and herein lies its great weak- 
ness." 

The late Mr. Wendell Phillips said, " Our system stops 
too short, and as a justice to boys and girls as well as to 
society it should see to it that those whose life is to be 
one of manual labor should be better trained for it." 

Mr. Wickersham, late Superintendent of Public In- 
struction for the State of Pennsylvania, says, " It is 
high time that something should be done to enable our 
youth to learn trades and to form industrious habits and 
a taste for work." 

Dr. Runkle, of the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- 
nology, says, " Public education should touch practical 
life in a larger number of points ; it should better fit all 
for that sphere in life in which they are destined to find 
their highest happiness and well-being." 

Opinions of this character might be multiplied almost 
indefinitely. They reflect the general sentiment that, as 
an industrial agency, the public school is a failure ; but 
its value as an enlightening and civihzing agency is not 
therefore underestimated. It was not established as an 
industrial agency ; it was established as a bulwark of lib- 
erty, and nobly did it fulfil its mission. The colonial 
fathers had a horror of ignorance, and as a barrier against 
it they raised the public school. But they were without 
industrial interests in the higher departments of skilled 
labor, and without commerce in a large way. Lord Shef- 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 203 

field said that the American colonies were founded with 
the sole view of securing to England a monopoly of their 
trade, and Lord Chatham declared that they had no right 
to manufacture even a nail or a horseshoe. Even after 
the Eevolution, in 1784, the commerce of the country 
was so insignificant that eight bales of cotton shipped 
from South Carolina were seized by the customs authori- 
ties of England on the ground that so large a quantity 
could not have been produced in the United States ! 

These humble conditions no longer exist, and to object 
to the expansion of the public - school system to meet 
the requirements of new exigencies is to ignore the logic 
and march of events. The nations are running an in- 
dustrial race, and the nation that applies to labor the 
most thought, the most intelligence, will rise highest in 
the scale of civilization, will gain most in wealth, will 
most surely survive the shocks of time, will live longest 
in history. In the race for industrial supremacy we are 
not at the front. It is a fact to be pondered that we are 
exchanging the products of unskilled for skilled labor 
with the nations of Europe. In the course of a year, for 
example, England exports of raw material and food only 
about $150,000,000 in value, while her exports of manu- 
factures aggregate about $850,000,000 in value. On the 
other hand, our exports consist almost entirely of raw 
material and food, their annual value being about 
$800,000,000, while of manufactures we export only a 
beggarly $75,000,000 worth, and our imports of manu- 
factures are of the annual value of about $250,000,000. 
In crude, uneducated, unskilled labor capacity, we have 
grown mucli more rapidly than in the departments of 
educated, skilled labor; and in the ex-act ratio of this 
growth of unskilled over skilled labor, we are behind the 



204 MIND AND HAND. 

age. We are industrially ill-balanced. We are selling 
brawn and buying thought — cunning, invention, genius ; 
exhausting our physical manhood and impoverishing a 
virgin soil. We are suffering from a paucity of skilled 
labor, and we hesitate to apply the needed and obvious- 
ly adequate remedy — the training of the youth of the 
country in the elements of the useful arts, in the public 
schools. 

A final and conclusive evidence of the verity of the 
charge that prevailing methods of education are auto- 
matic, and hence superficial in their character, is found 
in an examination test recently made in one of the public 
schools in a large American city, in the department of 
mathematics. The superintendent begins to distrust his 
own system of abstract instruction, and resolves to test 
the acquirements of certain classes of pupils ranging from 
ten to twelve years of age. He submits a series of ques- 
tions in number, which are promptly solved either orally 
or in chalk on the black-board, showing a complete mas- 
tery of the subject from the abstract side, or point of 
view. To test the practical value of the knowledge thus 
exhibited the superintendent repeats his series of ques- 
tions, applying them to things. For example : He passes 
six cards to a pupil, and requests that one-half of them be 
returned. This question having been promptly and cor- 
rectly answered by the return of three of them, and the 
six cards being again placed in the hands of the pupil, 
the second question is propounded, namely, " Please give 
me one -third of one -half of the cards in your hand." 
The pupil is puzzled ; he fumbles the cards nervously, 
blushes, and returns a wrong number or becomes entirely 
helpless and "gives it up." This question, or some other 
question of similar general import, is submitted to each 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 205 

member of the class with a like unfavorable result in 
eight or nine cases in a total of ten cases. The superin- 
tendent is astonished ; he is more than astonished, he is 
deeply chagrined ; for he knows that the kindergarten 
child of six or seven years of age, with the blocks, would 
answer his series of questions correctly eight or nine 
times in a total of ten. 

It is impossible to conceive of a more striking illustra- 
tion of the prime defects of automatic education than is 
afforded by the foregoing described experiment. It sus- 
tains and justifies the severe criticism of the schools by 
Mr. Charles Francis Adams, Jr., in his magazine article 
of 1880, in the course of which he says, 

"From one point of view children are regarded as 
automatons; from another, as india-rubber bags; from 
a third, as so much raw material. They must move in 
step and exactly alike. They must receive the same 
mental nutriment in equal quantities and at fixed times. 
Its assimilation is wholly immaterial, but the motions 
must be gone through with. Finally, as raw material, 
they are emptied in at the primaries, and marched out 
at the grammar grades — and it is well I"* 

The testimony of Col. Francis Wo Parker, of the Cook 
County (Illinois) Normal School, is to the same effect. 
He says, 

" The most important work of to-day is to collect, rec- 
oncile, and apply all the principles and methods of edu- 
cation that have been discovered in the past, into one 
science and art of teaching. This would certainly radi- 
cally change all our school work in this country. When 

* " Scientific Common-school Education." — Harper's New Monthly 
Magazine, November, 1880, p. 937. 



206 MIND AND HAND. 

this is done the ground will be made ready for new ad- 
vances in the incomplete science of education. Because 
a complete science has not yet been discovered is a very 
poor reason for not applying what we already know. 
What specific changes would the application of known 
mental laws, in teaching about which all psychologists are 
in agreement, bring about ? For it is only by a sharp 
comparison of what is now done according to tradition 
and custom in our schools, with that which can be done 
by the application of the simplest principles of teaching, 
that the value of the true art of instruction may be in 
some degree appreciated. 

"To illustrate this it may be mentioned that little 
children have been taught to read, in the past, and a great 
majority of them are now taught, by a method that is 
utterly opposed to a mental law, about which there can 
be no dispute among those who know anything of the 
science of teaching. I refer to the ABC method. Near- 
ly three hundred years ago Comenius discovered a rule 
of teaching which may be said to embrace all rules in its 
category — ' Things that have to be done should be learned 
by doing them.' This rule is so simple and plain that 
every one, except the teachers, has adopted and used it 
since man has lived upon the earth. If I am not very 
much mistaken, the school-master for the last fifty years 
has been incessantly inventing ways of doing things in 
the school-room by doing something else. We try to 
teach the English language by rules, definitions, analyses, 
diagrams, and parsing. Before the poor innocent child 
can write a single sentence correctly, we teach the painful 
pronunciation of words without the grasping of thought 
as reading. We vainly endeavor to give children a 
knowledge of number by teaching figures, the signs of 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 207 

number. We cram our victim's mind full of empty, 
meaningless words, instead of inspiring and developing 
it by the sweet and strong realities of thought. This 
futile struggle to do things by doing something else is 
to-day costing the people of this country millions and 
millions of hard-earned dollars; and it is much to be 
feared that it will one day cost their children the bless- 
ings of free govern men t. Tliis is a serious charge. 

" The three hundred thousand teachers of this country 
are as faithful, honest, and earnest as any other class of 
active workers. If, then, these great truths in education 
be at the doors of our educators, why do they not acquire 
and use them ? The answer is not far to seek. Ji^ot one 
teacher in five hundred ever makes a practical, thorough 
study of the history of education, to say nothing of the 
science. 

" The tremendous projecting power of tradition stands 
stubbornly in the way of progress in education. It can 
only be met and overcome by the most thorough search- 
ing and indefatigable study of the child's nature, and of 
the means by which the possibilities for good in God's 
greatest creation may be realized."* 

The change from automatic to scientific education 
ought not to be very difficult. It has been made in the 
kindergarten. It consists in substituting things in place 
of signs of things. The boys should be taught to read in 
school as he will be required to read ; to write as he will 
be required to write ; and to cipher as he will be required 
to cipher, when lie becomes a man. 

In teaching chemistry, for example, there should be 

* Letter to the author under date of x\pril, 1883, and by him re- 
produced in a communication published in the Chicago Tribune, 
April 23, 1883. 



208 MIND AND HAND. 

a laboratory with the necessary illustrative apparatus. 
In teaching geography, in addition to the books and the 
globe, the form of the continent should be moulded in 
sand, with coast lines, mountain ranges, rivers, canals, har- 
bors, cities, etc. In teaching number the pupil should 
have the things and parts of things, represented by signs, 
in his hands. In teaching mechanics the pupil should 
handle the saw, the plane, the file, the hammer, and the 
chisel, and stand at the bench, the forge, and the turn- 
ing-lathe. It is in this way only that the pupil can be 
taught the power of expressing, as Mr. Clark puts it, 
" what has been absorbed on the receptive side." 

Mr. MacAlister illustrates the force of Mr. Clark's di- 
agrams in a sentence : " We must not close our eyes to 
the fact that by far the larger number of men in every 
civilized community are workers to whom a skilled hand 
is quite as important as a well filled head."* The prevail- 
ing methods of teaching fill the head but do not provide 
forassimilation, re-creationjand expression. Kow to as- 
similate, to reduce to practical value and put to use facts 
memorized, and to create, the power of expression is an 
essential prerequisite ; creating is expressing ideas in con- 
crete form. But under the old regime of education only 
two modes of expression are provided — speech and writ" 
ing. A third mode — drawing — has been very generally 
adopted. Drawing, however, is only the first step, an 
incomplete step, so to speak, of expression. It is a sign, 
an outline, of a thing. What we want is the thing itself. 
That thing can only be produced at the forge, the bench, 
or the lathe ; and this is manual training in the arts. 

* Mr. James MacAlister, Superintendent of Schools of the City ol 
Philadelphia, Pa., at the meeting of the American Institute of In- 
struction, Saratoga, N. Y., July 13, 1882. 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 209 

What manual training will do for the pupil is ex- 
pressed in the following terse paragraph by Col. Augus- 
tus Jacobson : 

" The boy leaving school should carry with him me- 
chanical, business, and scientific training, fitting him for 
whatever it may become necessary for him to do in the 
world. I would secure for society the advantage of all 
the brain capacity that is born and all the training it can 
take. It is possible and practicable to let every child of 
fair capacity start in life from his school a skilled worker, 
with the principal tools of all the mechanical employ- 
ments, an athlete with the maximum of health possible 
to him, and thoroughly at home in science and literature. 
The child so trained would, w^hen grown, be to the ordi- 
nary man of to-day what Jay-Eye-See is to an ordinary 
plough-horse." 

1 "ForluuaLely the past never completely dies for man. Many 
may forget it, but he always preserves it within him. For, take him 
at any epoch, and he is the product, the epitome, of all the earlier 
epochs. Let him look into his own soul, and he can find and dis- 
tinguish these different epochs by what each of them has left within 
him."—" The Ancient City," p. 13. By Fustel De Coulanges. Bos- 
ton: Lee & Shepard, 1882. 

2 "In fact, memory comes from interest. What children are 
deeply interested in they will never forget. A boy who can never 
say his lesson by heart will remember every detail of the cricket or 
football matches in which his heart really lives." — "Educational 
Theories," p. 116. By Oscar Browning, M.A. New York: Harper 
& Brothers, 1885. 



210 MIND AND HAND. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

AUTOMATIC CONTRASTED WITH SCIENTIFIC EDU- 
CATION— Continued. 

The Failure of Education in America shown by Statistics of Railway 
and Mercantile Disasters. — Shrinkage of Railway Values and Fail- 
ures of Merchants. — Only Three Per Cent, of those entering Mer- 
cantile Life achieve Success. — Business Enterprises conducted by 
Guess: Cause, Unscientific Education. — Savage Training is better 
because Objective. — Mr. Foley, late of the Massachusetts Institute 
of Technology, on the Scientific Character of Manual Education 
— Prof. Goss, of Purdue University, to the same Effect — also Dr. 
Belfield, of the Chicago Manual Training School. — Students love 
the Laboratory Exercises. — Demoralizing Effect of Unscientific 
Training. — The Failure of Justice and Legislation as contrasted 
with the Success of Civil Engineering and Architecture. 

A STRIKING illustration of the defective character of 
both public and private systems of education, in the 
United States, is afforded by the statistics of commercial, 
railway, and other business failures. In 1877 a careful 
compilation of figures in regard to the shrinkage of rail- 
way values showed the following result : 

" In round numbers, eighteen hundred millions of doln 
lars^ or thirty-eight per cent, of the capital reported as 
invested in two hundred of our railway companies alone, 
is wholly unproductive to the investors, and the greater 
part is wholly lost to them. This is sufficiently appalling, 
but when we consider how many companies that have 
managed to keep up the interest on their bonds have 
wholly, or almost, ceased to pay any interest on their cap- 
ital stock, which stock, in turn, has shrunk to seventy- 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 211 

five, fifty, twenty-five, ten, in some cases ^^ per cent, of 
its par value, it will seem to be a reasonable conclusion 
that the actual shrinkage and loss to somebody on the 
face value of railway investments in the United States 
has been fully fifty per cent..!"^ 

In view of this startling exhibit it is evident that in 
the projection, construction, and management of the rail- 
ways of the United States there has been gross incom- 
petency. 

In 1881 Messrs. R. G. Dun & Co., the well-known 
commercial agents, showed that of the wholesale mer- 
chants doing business in the city of Chicago in 1870 
fifty per cent, had failed, suspended, or compromised 
with their creditors. 

Forty years ago Gen. Dearborn, a prominent citizen 
of Chicago, declared that not more than three per cent, 
of the individuals who embark in trade end life with suc- 
cess. The success meant, doubtless, is unbroken solven- 
cy during the business experience of the merchant, and 
the final accumulation of a competence. The mercantile 
ranks in the United States afford many instances of in- 
dividual merchants and firms who have settled or com- 
promised with their creditors several times, and finally 
succeeded — succeeded at the expense of their creditors. 
But this is not the success meant by Gen. Dearborn. 
This statistical information, furnished by Messrs. R. G. 
Dun & Co., tends to confirm, approximately, the verity 
of the common remark that in trade not one in a hun- 
dred succeeds. 

Let us suppose that three merchants in a hundred so 
conduct their business as never to ask their creditors for 

* The Chicago Railway Age. 



213 MIND AND HAND. 

a favor, never to " settle " for 50 or 25 cents, but always 
pay " dollar for dollar," and come out in the end rich. 
This is strictly legitimate success. It would be very in- 
teresting to learn what becomes of the other ninety-seven 
merchants. Most of them go down after a few years, 
never again to emerge above the surface of commercial 
affairs. They live on salaries, enter the ranks of the 
speculative class, or become genteel paupers. But doubt- 
less seven at least of the ninety-seven " compromise " and 
" settle " themselves over the breakers, and finally achieve 
success. So that of the ten successful merchants out of 
a hundred those who succeed at the expense of their cred- 
itors are as seven to three of those who win success by 
the highest degree of mercantile merit. 

With ninety utter failures, seven successes which in- 
volve the misfortune or wreck of others, and only three 
untarnished successes in a hundred, the general ambition 
to enter mercantile life is simply unaccountable. Of 
course the small number of successful merchants have to 
calculate upon the failures which will inevitably occur. 
They must discount the losses they are sure to incur 
through those failures — provide for them by increasing 
the otherwise sufficient profit of each transaction. In 
this way the public pays the cost of each failure. In 
other words, the consumer is taxed to pay the expense 
of ninety complete failures, and seven partial failures, in 
every hundred mercantile experiments. This expense 
aggregates scores of millions of dollars in this country 
alone, every year. The sum of losses by the failure of 
merchants in good seasons is very large, and in seasons 
of commercial depression it is vast. 

It is evident that ninety-seven in every hundred mer- 
chants mistake their avocation. Only three in a hundred 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 213 

are exactly fitted for the business they undertake. They 
are morally the "fittest" who survive by virtue of abil- 
ity and integrity ; the seven who survive by levying 
contributions on their creditors may also be regarded as 
the " fittest " according to the Darwinian theory. Of the 
ninety who go down without even a struggle to " settle " 
or " compromise," they answer to the received definition 
of dirt — '' matter out of place." 

The investigation made by Messrs. R. G. Dun & Co., 
which resulted in the statistical information here repro- 
duced and commented upon, was brought about by the 
assertion in 1881 of a life-insurance agent that fifty per 
cent, of the wholesale merchants doing business in the city 
of Chicago in 18Y0 had meantime failed, suspended, or com- 
promised with their creditors. Out of this investigation 
the question logically springs, " Is not failing in business 
made too easy ?"^ If " compromises," '' settlements," and 
" failures " carry with them no disgrace, it is but natural 
that thousands should take the risk of them in the con- 
test for the great prizes which are the reward of success. 
The distinction in the public mind between the three 
merchants in a hundred who succeed legitimately and 
the seven who succeed by questionable '' compromises " 
or " settlements " is very slight ; and too many of the 

* "Mercantile honor is held so high in some countries that the 
calamity of bankruptcy drives men mad. In France there are nu- 
merous instances of almost superhuman struggles on the part of 
ruined merchants to regain, by patient effort and pinching economy, 
their lost station in the business community. Cesar Birotteau, Bal- 
zac's hero of such a struggle, dies from excess of emotion in the hour 
of his triumph. ' Behold the death of the just !' the Abbe Loraux 
exclaims, as he regards, with lofty pride, the expiring merchant." — 
" Ten-minute Sketches," p. 220. By Charles H. Ham. Chicago and 
New York : Belford, Clark & Co., 1884. 



314 MIND AND HAND. 

ninety who fail ntterlj retire with large sums of money 
which belong honestly to their creditors. Doubtless the 
life-insurance agent, in depicting the perils of mercantile 
ventures, urged the propriety of the merchant fortifying 
himself against disaster by insuring his life for the bene- 
fit of his family. This is a legitimate argument when 
addressed to the merchant in solvent condition ; but the 
life ■ insurance agent's intimate acquaintance with the 
shaky finances of nine-tenths of the commercial commu- 
nity teaches him that a large share of the money he re- 
ceives in premiums, comes not from the merchant, but 
from the merchant's creditors, who will soon be called 
upon, in the natural course of events, to consent to a 
composition of his claim, while the shaky merchant will 
retire with a paid-up policy of insurance in favor of his 
family. 

It is quite plain that in nine cases out of ten the mer- 
chant who carries a large policy of insurance on his life 
actually pays for it out of his creditors' instead of his 
own money. To be sure, it may be said that the nine 
merchants hope and expect to succeed, as well as the one. 
But is not it the duty of the merchant who owes large 
sums of money to think more of providing means for 
the payment of his immediate debts than of laying up a 
support for himself and familj in the event of failure? 
Some disgrace ought to attach to failure in business ; that 
is to say, disgrace enough to make the merchant cautious 
and economical, with a view, not to his own protection 
in the event of failure, but to the protection of his cred- 
itors, and of his own reputation as a business man. 

These failures, on so vast a scale, of railway enterprises, 
and the almost total wreck of mercantile ventures, show 
that the business of this country is done, as a Yankee 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 215 

might say, "by guess," or as the mechanic of the old 
regime would say, " by the rule of thumb." The conclu- 
sion is hence irresistible tliat the youth of the United 
States are not so educated as to fit them for the conduct, 
to a successful issue, of great business enterprises. And 
this is an impeachment of what is regarded, on the whole, 
as the best system of popular education in operation in 
the world. A system of education which turns out nine- 
ty-three or ninety-seven men who fail, to three or seven 
men who succeed in business, must be very unscientilic. 
If the savage system of education were not better adapt- 
ed to the savage state, the savage would perish from the 
earth in the process of civilization. The savage bends 
his ear to the ground and robs the forest of its secrets, 
not three times in a hundred, but ninety and nine times. 
Mnety-nine times in a hundred he traces the foot- 
steps of his enemy in the tangled mazes of the pathless 
wood. 

In " Aborigines of Australia "* Mr. G. S. Lang states 
that "one day while travelling in Australia he pointed 
to a footstep and asked whose it was. The guide glanced 
at it without stopping his horse, and at once answered, 
' Whitefellow call him Tiger.' This turned out to be cor- 
rect ; which was the more remarkable as the two men be- 
longed to different tribes, and had not met for two years." 
Among the Arabs it is asserted that some men know 
every individual in the tribe by his footstep. Besides 
this, every Arab knows the printed footsteps of his own 
camels, and of those belonging to his immediate neigh- 
bors. He knows by the depth or slightness of the im- 
pression whether a camel was pasturing, and therefore 

* "Aborigines of Australia," p. 24. 



216 MIND AND HAND. 

not carrying any load, or mounted by one person only, 
or heavily loaded. The Australian will kill a pigeon 
with a spear at a distance of thirty paces. The Esqui- 
mau in his kayak will actually turn somersaults in the 
water. After giving many illustrations of the skill of 
various races of savages. Sir John Lubbock says, 

" What an amount of practice must be required to ob- 
tain such skill as this ! How true, also, must the weapons 
be ! Indeed it is very evident that each distinct type of 
flint implement must have been designed for some dis- 
tinct purpose." He adds, " The neatness with which the 
Hottentots, Esquimaux, l^orth American Indians, etc., are 
able to sew is very remarkable, although awls and sinews 
would in our hands be but poor substitutes for needles 
and thread. As already mentioned (in page 332), some 
cautious archaeologists hesitated to refer the reindeer 
caves of the Dordogne to the Stone Age, on account of 
the bone needles and the works of art which are found in 
them. The eyes of the needles especially, they thought, 
could only be made with metallic implements. Prof. 
Lartet ingeniously removed these doubts by making a 
similar needle for himself with the help of flint ; but 
he might have referred to the fact stated by Cook in his 
first voyage, that the 'New Zealanders succeeded in drill- 
ing a hole through a piece of glass which he had given 
them, using for this purpose, as he supposed, a piece of 
jasper."* 

The education which enables the savage to make these 
extremely nice adjustments of means to ends is scientific. 
The observation, for example, of the Arab who draws 

* " Prehistoric Times," pp. 544, 548. By Sir Jolin Lubbock, Bart., 
M.P. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1875. 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 217 

such accurate conclusions from the " printed footstep of 
the camel," if applied to the problems of civilized life, 
would result in success, not faihire. 

The excellence of this savage training consists in its 
practical character, in its perfect adaptation to the end in 
view. For example, the Esquimau boy is not instructed 
in the theory of turning somersaults in the water, in his 
kayak. He sees his father perform the feat ; he is given 
a kayak and required to perform it also. The result is 
early and complete success. So of the Arab. In trav- 
ersing the desert it is important for him to read every 
sign, to translate every mark left in the sand. Upon the 
accuracy of his observation his life may often depend. 
The print of the camel's footstep may tell him whether 
he is, soon or late, to meet friend or foe. Hence from 
early childhood his faculty of observation is trained until 
it soon becomes as delicate and nice as the sense of touch 
of a blind, deaf mute. Sir John Lubbock thinks that a 
great amount of practice must be required to achieve so 
much skill ; but the results are due, probably, more to 
the nature, than to the extent, of the practice. It is tlie 
excellence of the training that produces results which 
excite wonder and admiration. The savage is indolent; 
he works only that he may eat, and he works well, sim- 
ply because he has been taught objectively, instead of 
subjectively. 

The difference in results between the best and the 
poorest methods of instruction is very great, as witness 
the testimony of Mr. Thomas Foley, late instructor in 
forging, vise-work, and machine-tool work in the school 
of mechanic arts of the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- 
nology. He says, 

"It is a great waste of time to spend two or three 



218 MIND AND HAND. 

years in acquiring knowledge of a given business, profes- 
sion, or trade, that can be acquired in the short space of 
twelve or thirteen days, under a proper course of instruc- 
tion. Twelve days of systematic school-shop instruction 
produces as great a degree of dexterity as two or more 
years' apprenticeship under the adverse conditions which 
prevail in the trade-shop."^ The manual training meth- 
ods are the same as those which enable the savage to 
perform such feats of skill. They are the natural and 
hence most efficient methods of imparting instruction. 

The manual training school is a kindergarten for boys 
fourteen years of age. Miss S. E. Blow, in formulating 
the theory of the kindergarten, describes the methods of 
the savage's school, and those of the manual training 
school, as follows : 

" It is a truth now universally recognized by educators 
that ideas are formed in the mind of a child by abstrac- 
tion and generalization from the facts revealed to him 
through the senses ; that only what he himself has per- 
ceived of the visible and tangible properties of things 
can serve as the basis of thought ; and that upon the viv- 
idness and completeness of the impressions made upon 
him by external objects, will depend the clearness of his 
inferences and the correctness of his judgments. It is 
equally true, and as generally recognized, that in young 
children the perceptive faculties are relatively stronger 
than at any later period, and that while the understand- 
ing and reason still sleep, the sensitive mind is receiving 
those sharp impressions of external things which, held 
fast by memory, transformed by the imagination, and 

* Report on "The Manual Element in Education," p. 30. By John 
D. Runkle, Ph.D., LL.D., Walker Professor of Mathematics, Insti- 
tute of Technology, Boston, Mass. 



AUTOMATIC ANT) SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 219 

finally classified and organized through reflection, result 
in the determination of thought and the formation of 
character. 

" These two parallel truths indicate clearly that the 
flrst duty of the educator is to aid the perceptive faculties 
in their work by sui3plying the external objects best cal- 
culated to serve as the basis of normal conceptions, by 
exhibiting these objects from many different stand-points 
— that variety of interest may sharpen and intensify the 
impressions they make upon the mind, and by presenting 
them in such a sequence that the transition from one 
object to another may be made as easy as possible."* 

This admirable exposition of the theory of scientific 
education solves the mystery which has always enveloped 
savage skill. It also affords a philosophic explanation of 
the fact discovered by Mr. Foley, namely, that the stu- 
dent of the manual training school acquires as much 
knowledge in one hundred and twenty hours as the ap- 
prentice of the machine-shop does in two years. In a 
word, it shows exactly why scientific education is so in- 
comparably superior to automatic education. Mr. Foley 
asserts, in substance, that the scientific methods of the 
manual training school are twenty times as valuable to 
the student as the unscientific methods of the trade-shop 
are to the apprentice. 

In a familiar letter to the author. Prof. Gossf shows 
why the methods of the manual training school are so 
very valuable. He says : 

* "The Kindergarten. An address, delivered April 3, 1875, before 
the Normal Teachers' Association, at St. Louis, Mo." 

f Prof. William F. M. Goss, a graduate of the school of mechanic 
arts of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and at present in- 
structor in the mechanic arts department of the Purdue University. 



230 MIND AND HAND, 

" In such a school, or course, a student is taught to per- 
form a series of operations, involving practice with a va- 
riety of tools, on pieces of suitable material. It is not to 
be supposed that his ability to make a certain piece is 
directly valuable, for the experience of a lifetime may 
never require him to make it again. It is not expected 
that while making the piece he will learn a number of 
formulated facts relating to his work, and its application 
to other work, for that is not the best way to learn. Nor 
can we expect him to acquire a high degree of hand skill 
(accuracy and rapidity of movement combined), for this 
his limited time will not permit. But he does this : he 
works out a practical mechanical problem with every 
piece he makes. He sees how the tool should be handled, 
and how the material operated on behaves. He comes to 
understand why the tool cuts well in some directions and 
not so well in others; and all the time he queries to 
himself where it was that he saw a joint like the one he 
is making. He is an investigator — as much so as a stu- 
dent in chemistry. His mind must always guide his 
hand; his reasoning opens new fields of thought with 
every stroke of the chisel. 

" A boy ten years old, who was a member of a class 
under my direction in Indianapolis in 1883, is reported 
to have said, ' Why, mother, I never looked at the doors 
and windows so much in all my life as I have since I be- 
gan at the wood-working school.' 

"I tell my students how to go to work, when they are 
likely to make mistakes, and how mistakes may be avoid- 
ed. In operating along the line directed they thorough- 
ly understand what they are doing, and why they do it. 
They see on all sides of their work. 

" If I have several different tools for doing work of 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 321 

the same character, I frequently give a student first one 
and then another, until he has tried them all. Then 
I ask him which he likes best, and why. Suppose we are 
to make a drawing-board. The class having already been 
made familiar with the principles governing the shrink- 
age and warping of woods, is asked in what way the cleats, 
to prevent warping, may best be fastened to the ends. 
The question is left open for a day or two, and sketches 
are submitted and views exchanged on the subject. 

" I frequently ask my students to pass to me, in writ- 
ing, as many facts (not in the form of a composition) as 
they can think of regarding certain stated features of 
their work — not facts to be obtained from books, but 
from things they have seen and with which they are fa- 
miliar. The replies are often remarkable for accuracy 
and force of statement. . . . 

" The manual training school that does not by its work 
inspire thought and encourage investigation is poor in- 
deed ; the school that assumes its work to be mind train- 
ing hy hand practice is the ideal school, and the school 
that will succeed. . . . 

" My answer to your second and third questions is al- 
ready evident. I consider an hour in the shop as valuable 
for its intellectual training as an hour of book-study, and 
two hours in the shop as valuable as two hours of study. 
I do not think that a student can take two hours of shop- 
work in addition to a full course of outside study ; but I 
am convinced that two hours in the shop can be made to 
take the place of one hour of study without extra burden 
to the student. Therefore, this being done, the student 
will get as much again intellectual benefit from the shop 
as he would get if the shop-work equivalent in time were 
given to book-study." 



222 MIND AND HAND, 

This description of the mental operations which ac- 
company the laboratory exercises of the manual training 
school shows the intimacy of the relations existing be- 
tween the brain and the hand. It shows how they act 
and react upon each other, and affords an explanation of 
the remark of Dr. Belfield,* that the laboratory exercises 
are in fact a great strain upon the mental constitution of 
the student. This observation of Dr. Belfield, one of the 
most distinguished teachers of the old regime in the 
United States, entirely justifies the claim made in behalf 
of the scientific character of manual training as an edu- 
cational agency, for it shows that such training is in no 
sense automatic. If manual training is a great strain 
upon the mental faculties, it must be because the use of 
tools stimulates such faculties to great activity. And if 
this is true, the mental discipline derived from manual 
training must be proportionally great. This is a pivotal 
point; for if the observation of Dr. Belfield is well 
founded in fact and reason, it proves to a demonstration 
the high educational value of manual training — proves its 
superiority over all the methods of the old regime. 

Prof. Goss says, " The manual training school student 
is an investigator — as much so as a student in chemis- 
try. His mind must always guide his hand, his reason- 
ing opens new fields of thought with every stroke of the 
chisel. He sees on all sides of his work."f And Dr. 

* Henry H. Belfield, A.M., Ph.D., Director of the Chicago Manual 
Training School. 

f "No extent of acquaintance with the meanings of words can 
give the power of forming correct inferences respecting causes and 
effects. The constant habit of drawing conclusions from data, and 
then of verifying those conclusions by observation and experiment, 
can alone give the power of judging correctly." — " Education," p. 88, 
By Herbert Spencer. New York : D. Appleton & Co., 1883. 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 233 

Belfield sajs that these varied operations of the mind 
cause a severe mental strain. It would be difficult to 
find a better exemplification of scientific education than 
a course of training which exercises simultaneously the 
powers of both body and mind, a course which with every 
fresh burden put upon the mind puts new vitality into 
the body. This is, indeed, the very opposite of auto- 
matic education, and we may well call it scientific educa- 
tion. 

Another leaf from the experience of Dr. Belfield is 
worthy of reproduction here. On the 20th of February, 
1884, he took the sense of the students in his school on 
the question whether or not they should indulge in a 
vacation on "Washington's birthday anniversary. Some- 
what to his surprise the vote was almost unanimous in the 
affirmative. He acceded to the wishes of the students, 
but no sooner was the announcement made, than he was 
besieged with applications from nearly all of them for 
permission to convert the holiday into a work-day in the 
laboratories ! Dr. Belfield has been compelled to post a 
peremptory order against the occupancy of the school 
laboratories by the students on Saturdays, which are reg- 
ular vacation days. 

IS'atural training is scientific training. The fondness 
of the student for the manual training school is evi- 
dence of its scientific character. He is fond of it because 
it is natural. Miss Blow says of the child : " Only what 
he himself has perceived of the visible and tangible prop- 
erties of things can serve as the basis of thought, and 
upon the vividness and completeness of the impressions 
made upon him by external objects will depend the 
clearness of his inferences and the correctness of his 
judgments." This is the education both of the kinder- 



224 MIND AND HAND. 

garten and the manual training school, and it brightens, 
stimulates, and develops, while automatic education stu- 
pefies. 

Mr. Foley, formerly of the Massachusetts Institute of 
Technology, declares, as the result of his experience, as 
already stated, that the scientific methods of the manual 
training school are twenty times as valuable to the stu- 
dent as the unscientific methods of the trade-shop are to 
the apprentice. But we have shown in a former chapter 
that the training of the trade-shops of England, during 
the past one hundred and fifty years, has been better than 
that of the English schools and universities ; in a word, 
that England is more indebted for her greatness to her 
apprentice system than to her school system. It follows 
that the school system of England must have been almost 
indescribably poor. 

That the system of popular education in the United 
States, which is much more comprehensive, and presum- 
ably better, than that of England, is very poor indeed in 
results, is shown by the statistics of railway and mercan- 
tile disasters ; and it is scarcely necessary to remark that 
these disasters show prevailing methods of education to 
be as defective morally as they are mentally. The rea- 
son of this is that, being automatic, they lead neither to 
the discovery of truth nor to the detection of error. It 
is easy to jnggle with words, to argue in a circle, to make 
the worse appear the better reason, and to reach false 
conclusions which wear a plausible aspect. But it is not 
so with things. If the cylinder is not tight the steam- 
engine is a lifeless mass of iron of no value whatever. A 
flaw in the wheel of the locomotive wrecks the train. 
Through a defective flue in the chimney the house is set 
on fire. A lie in the concrete is always hideous; like 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 225 

murder, it will out. Hence it is that the mind is liable 
to fall into grave errors until it is fortified by the wise 
counsel of the j)ractical hand. 

It is obvious that the reason of the demand for the 
manual element in education is not so much that indus- 
trial interests require to be promoted, as that mental op- 
erations may be rendered more true, and hence more sci- 
entific. What we need more than we need a better class 
of mechanics is a better class of men — men of a higher 
grade both morally and intellectually. The study of 
things so steadies and balances the mind that the atten- 
tion being once turned in that direction great results 
soon follow, as witness, the history of discovery and in- 
vention in England. 

The world moves very fast industrially, but very slow 
morally and intellectually. Mechanics stand the test of 
scrutiny far better than merchants. Civil engineers and 
architects are more competent than railway presidents, 
lawyers, judges, and legislators. The reason of this fact 
is that mechanics, civil engineers, and architects are edu- 
cated practically in the world's shops and the world's 
technical schools. They are trained in things, while mer- 
chants, railway presidents, lawyers, judges, and legislators 
have only the automatic word-training of the schools. It 
is notorious that criminals are not punished in this coun- 
try. Suppose there were such a failure of bridges as there 
is of justice. That is to say, suppose nine-tenths of the 
bridges constructed, whether for railway or other pur- 
poses, should fall within a few months of their comple- 
tion. What would be thought of the technical schools 
whence the civil engineers graduate ? 

Ninety-seven merchants in a hundred fail. Suppose 
ninety-seven buildings in a hundred, constructed under 



236 MIND AND HAND. 

the direction of architects, should tumble down over the 
heads of their occupants six months after their erection. 
The education of the architects would no doubt be regard- 
ed as defective. 

Buckle says of English legislation, "The best laws 
which have been passed have been those by which some 
former laws were repealed.""^ It will be admitted that 
the same is true of American legislation.f In other 
words, the average legislator is wiser in the statutes he 

* "Histor}' of Civilization in England," Vol. I=, p. 300. By Henry 
Thomas Buckle. New York : D. Appleton & Co., 1864. 

"In a paper read to the Statistical Society in May, 1873, Mr. Jan- 
son, Vice-president of the Law Society, stated that from the statute of 
Merton (30 Henry III.) to the end of 1872 there had been passed 
18,110 public acts, of which he estimated that four-fifths had been 
wholly or partially repealed. He also stated that the number of pub- 
lic acts repealed wholly or in part, or amended, during the three years 
1870-71-73 had been 3532, of which 2759 had been totally repealed. 
To see whether this rate of repeal has continued I have referred to 
the annually issued volumes of the ' Public General Statutes ' for the 
last three sessions. Saying nothing of the numerous amended acts, 
the result is that in the last three sessions there have been totally re- 
pealed, separately or in groups, 650 acts belonging to the present reign, 
besides many of preceding reigns. . . . 

"Seeing, then, that bad legislation means injury to men's lives, 
judge what must be the total amount of mental distress, physical 
pain, and raised mortality which these thousands of repealed Acts of 
Parliament represent." — "The Man versus the State," pp. 50, 51. By 
Herbert Spencer. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 

f "So thoroughly have the conscience and intelligence of the North 
apprehended these facts [neglect to educate and enlighten the freed- 
men], that while the Nation has done nothing they have given in pri- 
vate charity, intended to remedy this evil, nearly a million dollars a 
year for nearly twenty years. This is the instinct of a people versus 
the stupidity of their legislators. ... Of the true character of the South 
he [the author] was, like all his class, profoundly ignorant, almost as 
ignorant as the men who made the Nation's laws."—" An Appeal to 
Caesar," pp. 52, 56. By A. AV. Tourgee. 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 227 

repeals than in the bills he enacts. What if the incom- 
petency of the legislator were paralleled by that of the 
machinist ? Suppose ninety-seven in every one hundred 
locomotives should break down on the "trial-trip," and 
be returned to the builder's shop for remanufacture. 
Such a result would be an impeachment of the education 
of the locomotive builder. 

Ninety -seven in every hundred boys who graduate 
from the public schools and embark in mercantile pur- 
suits fail. Suppose ninety - seven in every hundred 
watches made in the American watch factories should 
prove to be worthless. The watch companies would, 
no doubt, soon be in the hands of the sheriff. But, as 
a matter of fact, the Elgin National Watch Company, 
for example, makes twelve hundred watches a day, and 
each and every one of them is an almost perfect time- 
keeper. 

There is, then, no such failure of the arts as there is of 
justice ; no such failure of mechanics as of merchants; no 
such failure of locomotives and watches as of legislation. 
It follows that the education of artisans is better, more 
scientific, than that of merchants, judges, lawyers, and 
legislators. And this is a very significant fact when it 
is considered that the State does much for education in 
helles-lettres and scarcely anything for education in the 
arts and sciences."^ 



* The reason why statutes fail more frequently than steam-engines 
and bridges is not wholly because the legislator has to deal with hu- 
man nature and the mechanic with inanimate matter. Steam and 
electricity are subtle forces, but man has quickly mastered them and 
successfully applied them to a variety of uses. 

It is not to the interest of any one that the machinist should make 
a defective locomotive, for example ; but it is often to the interest of 



228 MIND AND HAND. 

some one that the legislator should enact vicious laws. Vicious 
statutes are enacted with a design to injure the public in order that 
certain individuals may be benefited thereby. 

If the mind should act as honestly in legislation as the hand does 
in construction, statutes would not have to be repealed yearly. 

We have fallen into the habit of regarding education as a polite 
accomplishment having very little to do with the real business of 
life; but this is not the fact. Education begins in the cradle and 
continues through life ; and it makes the man what he is. If he 
goes to the penitentiary it is his education that sends him there. If 
he is sent to the General Assembly of the State or to the Congress of 
the Nation, and there helps to enact vicious laws, it is his education 
that is responsible for such laws. If the man as a citizen sells his 
franchise at the polls, or his vote in the legislative hall, for money, it 
is the education he has received that is responsible for his baseness. 

It will be said that the explanation of the greater apparent accu- 
racy of the woik of the hand is to be found in the fact that it 
operates upon matter while the mind deals with metaphysical sub- 
tilties. The contention will not be that mind is less plastic than 
matter, but that it is more diflQcult of comprehension. But how do 
we know this to be the fact? Where has the experiment been tried 
of honest contact mind with mind? It was not tried by the ancients. 
It is not on trial in any part of the world to-day. There is, hence, 
no place in which to seek evidence as to how mind would act upon 
mind if treated honestly, as matter is treated by the hand. But if 
the quality of selfishness is eliminated, there will be no difficulty in 
bringing all minds to an agreement, as the parts of a watch are 
brought into harmonious and useful action. And it is through the 
hand that this beneficent union is destined to be effected; for the 
hand is the source of wisdom, which is simply the power of dis- 
criminating between the true and ihe false. 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 229 



CHAPTER XX. 

AUTOMATIC CONTRASTED WITH SCIENTIFIC EDU- 
CATION— Continued. 

The Training of the Merchant, the Lawyer, the Judge, and the Leg- 
islator contrasted with that of the Artisan. — The Training of the 
Merchant makes him Selfish, and Selfishness breeds Dishonesty.— 
Professional Men become Speculative Pliilosophers, and test their 
Speculations by Consciousness. — The Artisan forgets Self in the 
Study of Things. — The Search after Truth. — the Story of Palissy. 
— The Hero is the Normal Man; those who Marvel at his Acts are 
abnormally Developed. — Savonarola and John Brown. — The New 
England System of Education contrasted with that of the South. — 
American Statesmanship — its Failure in an Educational Point of 
View. — Why the State Provides for Education ; to protect Prop- 
erty. — The British Government and the Land Question. — The Thor- 
oughness of the Training given by Schools of Mechanic Art and In- 
stitutes of Technology as shown in Things. — Story of the Emperor 
of Germany and the Needle-maker. — The Iron Bridge lasts a Cen- 
tury, the Act of the Legislator wears out in a Year. — The Cause 
of the Failures of Justice and Legislation. — The best Law is the 
Act that Repeals a Law; but the Act of the Inventor is never Re- 
pealed. — Things the Source and Issue of Ideas; hence the Neces- 
sity of Training in the Arts. 

Theee is a cause for the failure of the merchant, the 
lawyer, the judge, and the legislator, as well as for the 
success of the artisan. And the cause must be souerht in 
the courses of training, respectively, of the two classes. 
Let us assume that the artisan and the merchant, the 
lawyer, the judge, and the legislator, graduate at the same 
time from the public high school, or from Harvard or 
Yale. The merchant at once begins to trade, to buy and 
sell. He concerns himself with things only as they have 



^30 MIND AND HAND. 

a value, either naturally ari-sing from the law of demand 
and supply, or arbitrarily imposed by circumstances. His 
consideration of the relations of things is confined to the 
single question of the percentage of profit which may 
accrue to him from traffic in them. These are subjective 
])rocesses of thought, and the merchant becomes absorbed 
in them to the exclusion of all other topics. It goes 
without saying that he becomes intensely selfish. The 
struiTirle is one of mercantile life or death — ninety-three 
to ninety-seven in a hundred die ; tlireeto seven survive. 

Among merchants there is, hence, very little thought 
of the subject of justice, and no effort to discover truth. 
There must, at the end of the year, be a favorable bal- 
ance on the right side of the ledger, or the balance on the 
wrong side unerringly points the way to ruin. This is 
the post-school training of the merchant. That neither 
it nor his previous education renders him skilful we know, 
since he fails ninety-three to ninety-seven times in a hun- 
dred trials. That subjective training does not and never 
can promote rectitude has been shown in a former chap- 
ter of this work. That merchants who compromise with 
their creditors, and subsequently accumulate fortunes, very 
rarely repay the debt formerly forgiven is a notorious 
fact. A Chicago merchant who himself repaid such a 
composition debt early in his career, states, at the end of 
twenty-five years' experience, that of compromises involv- 
ing several hundred thousand dollars, made by him in fa- 
vor of debtors, not one dollar has ever been repaid. 

Upon leaving school or college the lawyer, the judge, 
and the legislator at once apply then]selves to books; 
their subsequent training is exclusively subjective. Their 
ideas receive color from, and are verified only by refer- 
ence to, consciousness. Subjective ti-uths have no rela- 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 331 

tions to things, and hence are susceptible of verification 
only through consciousness. They are, therefore, mere 
speculations after all, often ingenious but always prob- 
lematical. The result of such training is selfishness — 
selfishness of a very intense character ; and, as has been 
already shown, selfishness is merely another name for in 
justice. 

On the other hand the artisan devotes himself to things. 
His training is exclusively objective. His ideas fiow out- 
ward ; he studies the nature and relations of things. In 
this investigation he forgets self because his life becomes 
a grand struggle in search of truth ; and the discovery of 
truth in things, if not easy, is ultimately sure of attain- 
ment, since harmony is its sign, and its opposite, the false, 
is certain of exposure through its native deformity; for 
however alluring a lie may be made to appear in the ab- 
stract, in the concrete it is a monster unmasked. 

From the false the artisan intuitively shrinks. He can 
only succeed by finding the truth, and embodying it in 
some useful or beautiful thing which will contribute to the 
comfort or pleasure of man. Hence his watchword is util- 
ity, or, beauty in utility. Of the engrossing character of 
this struggle the story of Bernard Palissy affords a splen- 
did illustration. Palissy was an artist, a student, and a 
naturalist, but poor, and compelled to follow the profes- 
sion of surveying to support his family. At the age of 
thirty he saw an enamelled cup, of Italian manufacture, 
which fired his ambition. Ignorant of the nature of 
clays, he nevertheless resolved to discover enamel, and 
entered upon a laborious course of investigation and ex- 
periment with tliat end in view. After many years of 
Herculean effort and indescribable privation, which beg- 
gared and estranged his family, and rendered him an ob- 



233 MIND AND HAND. 

ject of ridicule among his neighbors, he achieved a grand 
success. At a critical period of his experiments, in the 
face of the indignant protests of his almost starving fam- 
ily, having exhausted his credit to the last penny, he con- 
signed to the flames of his furnace the chairs, tables, and 
floors of his humble cottage, and continued to watch his 
chemicals with all-absorbing attention, while his wife in 
despair rushed through the streets making loud proclama- 
tion of the scandal. 

But Palissy was more than a potter ; he was a Chris- 
tian, a philosopher, and an austere reformer. Notwith- 
standing he had been petted and patronized as an inge- 
nious artisan by the royal family of France, he was final- 
ly cast into prison under charge of heresy. It was there 
that the remarkable interview with King Henry III. oc- 
curred, which immortalized Palissy as a hero. " My good 
man," said the king, "you have been forty-five years in 
the service of the queen, my mother, or in mine, and we 
have suffered you to live in your own religion, amid all 
the executions and the massacres. Now, however, I am 
so pressed by the Guise party and my people that I have 
been compelled in spite of myself to imprison these two 
poor women and you." " Sire," answered the old man, 
"the count came yesterday on your part, promising life 
to these two sisters upon condition of the sacrifice of 
their virtue. They replied that they would now be mar- 
tyrs to their own honor as well as for the honor of God. 
You have said several times that you feel pity for me ; 
but it is I who pity you, who have said, ' I am compelled !' 
That is not speaking like a king. These girls and I, who 
have part in the kingdom of heaven — we will teach you 
to talk royally. The Guisarts, all your people, and your- 
self, cannot compel a potter to bow down to images of 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 233 

clay !"^ And Palissy the potter and heretic, at the age of 
seventy, died in the Bastile, proudly defying a king. 

The more absorbing the struggle for the discovery of 
truth tlie less I'ootn there is in the mind for selfishness; 
and as selfishness recedes, justice assumes its appropriate 
place as the controlling element in human conduct. The 
hero is an honest man, that's all, — 

"Though love repine, and reason chafe, 
There comes a voice without reply; 
'Tis man's perdition to be safe, 
When for the truth he ought to die." 

If all men were heroes — honest — there would be no oc- 
casion for heroism. If all education can be made scien- 
tific, all men can be made honest. The struggle to find 
truth is more natural than the struggle to succeed re- 
gardless of, or against, truth. The reason why what we 
call heroism appears so grand is this : the standards of pub- 
lic judgment have become so perverted by long custom 
in the abuse of truth, that normal conduct appears strange. 
When Palissy burned his chairs and tables in the cause 
of art, his family and his neighbors derided him, and de- 
nounced him as a madman, and in prison the king urged 
him, as a friend, to save himself from death by recanting 
his assertion of the right of freedom of religious opinion. 
Palissy was a hero neither to his family, his friends, nor 
his king ; f but he was right, and his discovery and his 



* "Palissy the Potter," Vol. II., pp. 187, 188. By Henry Morley. 
Boston : Ticknor, Keed & Fields, 1853. 

f " I had nothing but reproaches in the house ; in place of consola- 
tion, they gave me maledictions. My neighbors, who had heard of 
this affair [the failure of an experiment], said that I was nothing but 
a fool, and that I might have had more than eight francs for the 
things that I had broken ; and all this talk was brought to mingle 



234 MIND AXD HAND. 

firmness rendered him immortal. We now know, three 
hundred years farther down the course of time, that Pa- 
lissy's struggle over the furnace in the cause of art was 
mentally and morally normal, while the opposition he 
encountered was abnormal ; and that his defiance of the 
king was mentally and morally normal, while his perse- 
cution was abnormal and cruel. 

Palissy's mind was trained naturally in the direction 
of rectitude, while the minds of the millions of men who 
permitted him to die unfriended, a prisoner in the Bas- 
tile, were developed unnaturally. Their education was 
unscientific, and their characters were hence deformed. 
The one symmetrical character was that of Palissy, the 
lover of truth, who was ready to starve, if need be, for 
his art, and ready to die for his faith. The thin ranks 
of the so-called heroes of the ages of history constitute 
the measure of the poverty of the systems of education 
that have prevailed among mankind. These so-called 
heroes are merely normally developed men — men who 
search for the truth, and having found it, honor it always 
and everywhere. They are peculiar to no clime, to no 
country, to no age. They are cosmopolitan, and the fact 
that tliey are honored, after death, by succeediiii; ages is 
proof positive of the world's progress, or rather of the 
progress of moral ideas. 

The civilization of Italy in the middle of the fifteenth 
century presents the most violent possible contrast to 
that of America in the last half of the nineteenth cen- 
tury. But the one produced Savonarola, the hater of 
abuses in the Roman Catholic Church, and the other 



with my grief."— "Palissy the Potter," Vol. 1., p. 190. By Henry 
Morley. Boston : Ticknor, Reed & Fields, 1853. 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 235 

John Brown, the stern, uncompromising hater of human 
bondage. Four hundred years is a long period in the 
history of civilization ; but the priest of the fifteenth 
century, and the fanner of the nineteenth, are as near 
of kin in spirit, as if they had been born of the same 
mother, and reared in the same moral atmosphere. 

The true hero is always inexorable — as Savonarola in 
the presence of the majesty of a dying, remorse-stricken, 
half-repentant prince, and John Brown in the presence 
of his exultant but half-terrified captors. When Lorenzo 
di Medici lay terror-stricken, on his death-bed, Savonarola 
demanded of the dying prince, as the price of absolu- 
tion, a restoration of the liberties of the people of Flor- 
ence ; and this being refused, the priest departed without 
one word of peace. 

When John Brown, wounded and bleeding, lay a cap- 
tive at Harper's Ferry, listening to the taunts of angry 
Virginians, he said, calmly and firmly, " You had better 
— all you people of the South — prepare yourselves for a 
settlement of this question. It must come up for settle- 
ment sooner than you are prepared for it, and the sooner 
you commence that preparation the better for you. You 
may dispose of me very easily — I am nearly disposed of 
now — but this question is still to be settled — this negro 
question, I mean. The end of that is not yet.""^ 

There is nothing grander in history, whether real or 
mythological, than the picture of the humble priest of 
the fifteenth century, with no power except the justice 
of his cause, shaking thrones and making proud prelates, 
and even the Pope himself, tremble with fear ! And the 



* "The Public Life of Captain John Brown," p. 283. By John 
Redpath. Boston : Thayer & Eldridge, 1860. 



2B6 MIND AND HAND. 

exact parallel of this picture is found, four hundred years 
down the stream of time, in the person of the farmer, 
John Brown, defying the Constitution, law, and public 
sentiment of his country in the interest simply of the 
cause of justice. 

It has been shown through citations from the Walton 
report, as well as by the opinions of many competent 
witnesses, that the New England system of education, 
whether correct in theory or not, is, in actual operation, 
very defective. But at the time of its establishment it 
was the best system in existence. To it this country owes 
the quality of its civilization. The neglect of education 
by the Government of the United States is the most as- 
tonishing fact of its history. It is incomprehensible how, 
with a comparatively excellent educational system in op- 
eration, and in full view in the New England, Middle, 
and Western States, the National Government could calm- 
ly and inactively contemplate the almost entire neglect 
of popular education in the States of the South, and ig- 
nore, from year to year, the steadily accumulating hor- 
rors of ignorance and vice which were destined to lead 
to such deplorable political and social results. 

The difference between the civilization of New Eng- 
land and that of South Carolina, for example, is exactly 
measured by the difference between their respective edu- 
cational systems. New England undertook, at a very 
early day, to educate every class of its citizens; South 
Carolina made a monopoly of education, confining it to 
a single class. 

It must be admitted that the American statesmanship 
of the whole period of our history has been scarcely less 
short-sighted than that of England under the Georges, 
which resulted in saddling upon her people a debt that 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 237 

thev can never pay. If England had provided a com- 
prehensive and scientific system of popular education at 
the beginning of the eighteenth century, who doubts that 
the vicars through which her debt was incurred would 
have been averted? If the Government of the United 
States had compelled the adoption of a scientific educa- 
tional system by the States of the South, who doubts 
that slavery would have peaceably passed away, and the 
occasion for war passed away with it ? 

The conspicuous failure of American statesmanship 
consists in a failure to appreciate the value of scientific 
education. It shows that good citizenship is impossible 
without good education — for good education and good 
citizenship are convertible terms. And it is easy to show, 
by the past, that to hesitate on the subject of education is 
to be lost.* 

Why do we provide for popular education ? Is it out 
of pure generosity that the rich citizen consents to be 
taxed to pay for the education of his poor neighbor's 
children'? Does the man who has no children willingly 
surrender a portion of his estate for the education of the 
children of others, as an act of benevolence ? IN'ot at all. 
There is no security for property in a community devoid 
of education and consequent intelligence. Intelligence 
alone confers upon property a sacred character. In one 

* " If you examine into the history of rogues, you will find that they 
are as truly manufactured articles as anything else, and it is just be- 
cause our present system of political economy gives so large a stimu- 
lus to that manufacture that you may know it to be a false one. We 
had better seek for a system which will develop honest men than for 
one which will deal cunningly with vagabonds. Let us reform our 
schools, and we shall find little reform needed in our prisons." — 
"Unto This Last," p. 50. By John Ruskin. New York: John 
Wiley «fe Sons, 1883. 



238 MIND AND HAND. 

of two ways only can property be rendered secure in the 

owner's bands. It may be protected by a hired soldiery, 
through the force of arms/ or through the force of pub- 
lic sentiment enlightened by education. The reason why 
the poor but educated citizen would not lay violent hands 
on the rich citizen's property is the fact that he indulges 
the intelligent hope of himself acquiring property. Be- 
sides, the morals of a community are in the ratio of its 
intelligence. The indulgence of hope promotes self- 
esteem, and self-respect, and these qualities react ethi- 
cally. 

It should be borne in mind that while one of the 
main purposes of all governments is to preserve property 
rights, nearly all the governments of history have been 
shattered in pieces in the effort to fulfil this function of 
their existence. It may be said that there is never any- 
thing sacred about property unless it is honestly acquired. 
All the force of our own government was exerted in a 
vain effort to protect property in slaves. England has 
been compelled to disturb the property rights of the 
Irish landlords, and this is only the prelude to an attack 
upon the property rights of her own landlords. It was 
the ignorance of the English people hundreds of years 
ago that permitted the establishment of a land system 
which is now about to crumble in pieces, and in its fall 
wreck certain property rights. 

There is nothing sacred about property unless it is hon- 
estly acquired and honestly held ; and property can only 
be honestly acquired and honestly held, in communities 
intelligent enough to guard its acquisition, and continued 
possession, by just and adequate laws. It follows that edu- 
cation is the sole bulwark of the State, and so of property. 

The question of the first consequence is, therefore, 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 239 

always, What is the best system of education ? It is ob- 
vious, also, that the subject of cost should not enter into 
the discussion ; that the best education is the cheapest, 
is an indisputable proposition. We have seen that the 
New England system of education, which has spread over 
the whole country, is very much better than the system 
which prevailed in those States of the Union where slav- 
ery continued to exist down to 1864. But we have seen, 
also, that that system is very defective ; that it is auto- 
matic, and hence not natural, not practical, not scientific. 
It does not produce great merchants, great lawyers, great 
judges, or great legislators. That it does not, is abun- 
dantly shown by the fact that in mercantile life there are 
ninety-three to ninety-seven failures in every one hun- 
dred experiments ; by the fact that there is notoriously a 
general failure of justice ; and by the fact that here, as in 
Great Britain, the chief basiness of statesmen is the un- 
doing of vicious legislation. 

There is a system of training which produces a much 
higher average of culture than that of the public schools 
and the universities. We allude to the training received 
by the students of special mechanical and technical insti- 
tutions, and by the apprentices in trade-shops. The proof 
of this is found in the world's railways, ships, harbors, 
docks, canals, bridges, telegraph and telephone lines, and 
in a thousand and one other manifestations of skill in 
art. In the adaptation of means to an end, and in nicety 
of construction, the mechanic and the civil engineer show, 
in innumerable ways, with what thoroughness both their 
minds and their hands have been trained. If mercantile 
operations were governed by such excellent rules in pro- 
jection, and by such precision in execution, ninety-seven 
merchants in a hundred would not go to the wall. 



240 MIND AND HAND. 

A story has lately gone the round of the public prints 
to the effect that, during a visit to a needle factory by the 
Emperor of Germany, a workman begged a hair of his 
head, bored an eye in it, threaded it, and handed it back 
to the monarch, who had expressed surprise that eyes 
could be bored in the smaller sizes of needles. It does 
not matter whether or not this story is literally true ; it 
illustrates the delicacy of modern mechanical operations. 
Hundreds of similar illustrations might be given, show- 
ing how marvellously skilful the hand has become. 

It is not claimed that the hand is a nicer instrument 
than the mind. As a matter of fact, in drilling the hole 
in the hair the mind and the hand work together — 
the mind directs the hand, we will saj. The mind de- 
vises or invents a watch — every wheel, pinion, screw, and 
spring — and directs the hand how to make it, and how to 
set it up, and it ticks off the time. Why does the mind 
succeed so admirably when it employs the hand to exe- 
cute its will, but so ill when it devises and attempts, it- 
self, to execute ? How is it that the mind invents a watch 
which, being made by the hand, records the hour to a 
second, ninety-nine times in a hundred, but fails ninety- 
three to ninety-seven times in^a hundred to devise and 
carry into execution a mercantile venture? How is it 
that the mind invents a steam-engine consisting of a hun- 
dred pieces, so that, each piece being made by a different 
hand, the machine shall, when set up, ninety-nine times 
in a hundred, at once perform the work of five hundred 
horses without strain or friction, but when it grapples with 
law and fact in the chair of lawyer or judge produces 
a most pitiable wreck of justice? How is it that the 
mind devises and the hand executes with such nice adap- 
tation of means to the end in view, a bridge, that re- 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION, 241 

sembles a spider's web, and yet bears thousands of tons 
and endures for ages, but wlien it undertakes to legis- 
late evolves statutes that wear out in a year? The first 
iron bridge constructed spanned the Severn, in England. 
It was opened to traffic a hundred years ago, but it is 
still a stanch structure likely to stand for centuries. 
Where are the English statutes of that time ? Repealed 
to give place to a long line of others which in turn have 
been repealed. When the famous iron bridge across the 
Severn was constructed, English legislators were passing 
bills to compel the American colonies to trade only with 
the mother country, and to tax them without their con- 
sent. Lord Sheffield said, with charming frankness, that 
the colonies were founded with the sole view of securing 
to England a monopoly of their trade ; and Lord Chat- 
ham declared that they would not be permitted to make 
even a nail or a horseshoe. 

In 1516 Sir Thomas More denounced the criminal law 
of England, declaring that " the loss of money should not 
cause the loss of man's life."^ But this humane and en- 
lightened sentiment had so little weight that during the 
reign of Henry YIII. seventy-two thousand thieves were 
hanged — at the rate of two thousand a year. In 1785 
twenty men were executed in London at one time for 
thefts of five shillings. The Lord Chief-justice and the 
Lord Chancellor agreed that it would be dangerous to 
repeal the law punishing pilfering by youths. In 1816 
the Commons passed a bill abolishing capital pmiishment 
for shoplifting — stealing the value of five shillings — but 
the Lords defeated it, Lord Ellenborough, Chief-justice, 



* "The History of England," Vol. II., p. 83. By Harriet Mar- 
tineau. Philadelphia : Porter & Coates. 



243 MIND AND HAND. 

observing, peevishly, " They want to alter these laws 
which a century has proved to be necessary, and which 
are now to be overturned by speculation and modern 
philosophy.""^ 

The cause of these failures — of mercantile ventures, of 
justice, and of legislation — is this : Subjective mental 
processes are automatic, and hence they neither generate 
power nor promote rectitude ; they enfeeble rather than 
energize the brain. Men whose characters are formed 
by such educational processes never originate anything. 
They become selfish,^ they venerate the past, their eyes 
are turned backward ; hence, if they sometimes make a 
feeble effort to move forward they stumble. The law- 
yer, the judge, and the legislator are examples of this 
class. Their guide-books are musty folios in a dead lan- 
guage ; they look for "precedents " in an age whose civ- 
ilization perished with its language, and whose maxims 
and rules of life were long ago exploded. Such men can 
be compelled to move forward only by the lash of public 
opinion. Buckle, speaking of the reforms extorted from 
the legislators of England, says, 

"But it is a mere matter of history that our legisla- 
tors, even to the last moment, were so terrified by the 
idea of innovation that they refused every reform until 
the voice of the people rose high enough to awe them 
into submission, and forced them to grant what without 
such pressure they would by no means have conceded."! 

On the other hand, the inventor, the discoverer, and 
the artisan are always in the advance, and always moving 

* "The History of England," Vol. II., p. 85. By Harriet Mar- 
tineau. Philadelphia : Porter & Coates. 

t "History of Civilization," Vol. I., p. 361. By Henry Thomas 
Buckle. New York : D. Appleton & Co., 1864. 



i 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 243 

forward. They never look back except to catch the vital 
principle of the invention or discovery of yesterday for 
utilization in the improved macliine of to-day. Their 
acts are never repealed because they never become odi- 
ous. They never become odious because they contain the 
germs of imperishable truth. They are never false ; they 
are suitable to their time and the stage of development ; 
they constitute links in the chain of progress. While the 
legislator is horrified at the thought of innovation, the 
inventor, the discoverer, and the artisan are electrified 
by the discovery of a new principle in physics, and de- 
lighted at its application in a new invention, and its 
practical operation in a new and useful machine. 

The difference in effects upon the mental and moral 
nature, between purely mental training and mental and 
manual training combined, is susceptible of logical ex- 
planation. It is only in things that the truth stands 
clearly revealed, and only in things that the false is sure 
of exposure.'^ Hence exclusively mental training stops 
far short of the objective point of true education. For 
if it be true that the last analysis of education is art, 
progress can find expression only in things — in the work 
of men's hands. And it is true ; for ideas are mere vain 
speculations until they are embodied in things. ]^or is 



* "To know the truth it is necessary to do the truth.". , . 

"We rightly seek the meaning of the abstract in the concrete, be- 
cause we cannot act in relation to the abstract, which is only a repre- 
sentative sign ; we must give it a concrete form in order to make it a 
clear and distinct idea ; until we have done so we do not know that 
we really believe— only believe that we believe it. A truth is best 
certified to be a truth when we live it and have ceased to talk about 
it."— "Body and Will," p. 49. By Henry Maudsley, M.D. New 
York : D. Appleton & Co., 1884. 



244 MINI> AND HAND. 

this materialism unless all civilization is material ; for 
the prime difference between barbarism and civilization 
consists in the presence, in a state of civilization, of more 
things of use and beauty than are found in a state of bar- 
barism. To exalt things is not materialistic ; they are 
both the source and issue of ideas, and the measure of 
civilization. Ideas and things are hence indissolubly 
connected ; and it follows that any system of education 
which separates them is radically defective."^ Exclusive- 
ly mental training does not produce a symmetrical char- 
acter, because at best it merely teaches the student how 
to think, and the complement of thinking is acting. Be- 
fore thoughts can have any influence whatever upon the 
world of mind and matter external to the mind origi- 
nating them they must be expressed. They may be ex- 
pressed feebly, through the voice, in words ; more dura- 
bly, and therefore more forcibly, with the pen, on paper ; 
more forcibly still in drawing — pictures of things ; and, 
with the superlative degree of force, in real things. 
The object of education is the generation of power. 

* ' ' Prof. Huxley seems to hold that zoology cannot be learned with 
any degree of sufficiency unless the student practises dissection. In 
support of this position there are strong reasons. In the first place, 
the impression made on the mind by the actual objects, as seen, han- 
dled, and operated upon, is far beyond the efficacy of words or de- 
scription. And not only is it greater, but it is more faithful to the 
fact. While diagi-ams have a special value in bringing out links of 
connection that are disguised in the actual objects, they can never 
show the things exactly as they appear to our senses ; and this full 
and precise conception of actuality is the most desirable form of 
knowledge ; it is truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. 
Moreover, it enables the student to exercise a free and independent 
judgment upon the dicta of the teacher." — "Education as a Science," 
p. 303. By Alexander Bain, LL. D. New York : D. Appleton & Co. , 
1884. 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 245 

But to generate and store np power, whether mental or 
physical, or both, is a waste of effort, unless the power is 
to be exerted. Why generate steam if there is no engine 
to be operated ? Steam may be likened to an idea which 
finds expression through the engine — a thing. Why 
store the mind with facts — historical, philosophical, or 
mathematical — which are useless until applied to things, 
if they are not to be applied to things ? And if they are 
to be applied to things, why not teach the art of so ap- 
plying them ? As a matter of fact, the system of ed- 
ucation which does not do this is one-sided, incom- 
plete, unscientific. Rousseau says, "Education itself is 
certainly nothing but habit." If this be true, it will 
be conceded that the habit of expressing ideas in things 
should be formed in the schools, because the chief way 
in which man is benefited is through the expression of 
ideas in things. The system of education which tends to 
form this habit is that of the kindergarten and that of 
the manual training school. These systems are one in 
principle. They are not new ; they at least date back to 
Bacon, who declared that he would " employ his utmost 
endeavors towards restoring or cultivating a just and le- 
gitimate familiarity betwixt the mind and things." The 
kindergarten and the manual training school exactly re- 
alize Bacon's idea. The idea of the manual training 
school was in the mind of Comenius when he said, " Let 
things that have to be done be learned by doing them." 
It was in the mind of Pestalozzi when he said, " Educa- 
tion is the generation of power." It was in the mind of 
Froebel, not less than the kindergarten, when he said, 
" The end and aim of all our work should be the harmo- 
nious growth of the whole being." 

These are excellent definitions of education, and they 



246 MIND AND HAND. 

are sequential. If things that have to be done are 
learned by doing them, there will be in the course of the 
process a wholesome exercise of both body and mind, 
and this exercise will result in the generation of power 
— power to think well, and to do well ; and the process 
being continued, the result cannot fail to be the harmo- 
nious growth of the whole being. This is scientific, as 
opposed to automatic, education."^ 

* "Intellectual progress is of necessity from the concrete to the 
abstract. But regardless of this, highly abstract subjects such as 
grammar, which should come quite late, are begun quite early. Po- 
litical geography, dead and uninteresting to a child, and which should 
be an appendage of sociological studies, is commenced betimes, while 
physical geography, comprehensible and comparatively attractive to 
a child, is in great part passed over. Nearly every subject dealt with 
is arranged in abnormal order— definitions and rules and principles 
being put first, instead of being disclosed, as they are in the order of 
nature, through the study of cases. And then, pervading the whole, 
is the vicious system of rote learning — a system of sacrificing the 
spirit to the letter. . . . 

" A leading fact in human progress is that every science is evolved 
out of its corresponding art. It results from the necessity we are 
under, both individually and as a race, of reaching the abstract by 
way of the concrete, that there must be practice and an accruing 
experience with its empirical generalizations before there can be 
science." — "Education," pp. 61, 124. By Herbert Spencer. New 
York: D. Appleton & Co., 1883. 

1 Bui the protection to property afforded by arms is only temporary. 
An increase of the standing army involves an increase of ignorance 
and poverty, and the last analysis of ignorance and poverty is anar- 
chy. The anarchists of Chictigo [1886] were of foreign birth. They 
came to the United States from the standing-army-ridden countries 
of Europe. They were the product, the victims, of the European 
governmental system. Hence, the proposal to adopt arms as a 
remedy for anarchy is a proposal to abandon the American idea of 
government for that of Europe. To preserve the society of to-day 
from violent dissolution, it is necessary to shoot the anarchist. But 
to assure the permanence of society it is necessary to educate the 
child of the anarchist. 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL FKOBLEM. 247 



CHAPTER XXI. 
EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM— HISTORIC. 

EGYPT AND GREECE. 

Fundamental Propositions. — Selfishness the Source of Social Evil ; 
Subjective Education the Source of Selfishness and the Cause of 
Contempt of Labor; and Social Disintegration the Result of Con- 
tempt of Labor and the Useful Arts. — The First Class-distinction 
— the Strongest Man ruled ; his First Rival, the Ingenious Man. — 
Superstition.— The Castes of India and Egypt — how came they 
about? — Egyptian Education based on Selfishness.— Rise of Egypt 
— her Career; her Fall; Analysis thereof. — She Typifies all the 
Early Nations : Force and Rapacity above, Chains and Slavery 
below. — Their Education consisted of Selfish Maxims for the Gov- 
ernment of the Many by the Few, and Government meant the Ap- 
propriation of the Products of Labor. — Analysis of Greek Charac- 
ter — its Savage Characteristics. — Greek Treachery and Cruelty. — 
Greek Venality.— Her Orators accepted Bribes.— Responsibility of 
Greek Education and Philosophy for the Ruin of Greek Civiliza- 
tion. — Rectitude wholly left out of her Scheme of Education. — 
Plato's Contempt of Matter : it led to Contempt of Man and all 
his Works. — Greek Education consisted of Rhetoric and Logic ; all 
Useful Things were hence held in Contempt. 

It is a fundamental proposition of this work that self- 
ishness is the essence of depravity, and hence the source 
of all social evil ; and in previous chapters it has been 
shown, argumentatively, that exclusively subjective proc- 
esses of education tend, in a high degree, to promote self- 
ishness. Another fundamental proposition of this work 
is that the useful arts are the true measure of civilization, 
and that, as they are the product of labor, contempt of 
the laborer leads inevitably to social disintegration and 



248 MIND AND HAND„ 

the destruction of the State. If these propositions are 
true, the solution of all social problems is to be sought 
through a radical change in educational methods. If 
they are true, it is of the first importance that they be 
proved, not only by argument, but by the citation of such 
facts of history as bear upon the subject. Civilization is 
the product of education.^ If the education is good the 
product will be good, if evil the product will be evil. The 
purpose of this and the four following chapters is, there- 
fore, to trace the progress of civilization, to sketch in bold 
outline the social history of man. 

The aphorism, all men are created equal, is a fine 
phrase, but its truth is reserved for realization by the 
civilization of the future. A tendency to the formation 
of class-distinctions in human society, whether savage or 
civilized, is disclosed by all history. 

The first class-distinction sprang from the physical su- 
periority of one savage over his fellows. He whose power- 
ful frame and commanding eye enabled him best to cope 
with the beasts of field and forest became chief of the 
tribe. He held the first place by virtue of his brawny 
arm, and the less athletic, and more timid, became his 
subjects. But lie was not long without rivals. His first 
rival was the dwarf, or hunchback, who, struggling to over- 
come the misfortune of his deformity, in the seclusion of 
his mud hut, invented the stone hatchet and stone-point- 
ed arrow-head. His next rival was the puny, pale-faced 
youth who converted pantomimic signs and rude gest- 
ures into a language of sounds, and so armed communi- 
ties with the power of combination for mutual protection. 
Those who soonest mastered the first alphabet took high 
rank in the social circle, while those who could still only 
make themselves understood by grimaces and gestures 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 249 

fell to the grade of ciphers in the body politic, and came 
to be looked upon as dunces in society. Thereafter the 
women, who had previously been won as wives by per- 
sonal prowess, were more equally parcelled out. The 
savage who had invented the bow and the arrow was ex- 
empted from the toils of the chase, and from the general 
contention at the courting season ; a wife was assigned to 
him, and his tent w^as supplied with game in the hope 
that he would invent some other useful thing. Thus 
mind began to assert its empire over matter, the division 
of labor commenced, and a class-distinction was formed. 
Doubtless the youth w^ho invented language cultivated 
superstition among the ignorant, and so, increasing his al- 
ready considerable influence, secured the first social rank. 
Hence the castes of India and Egypt, consisting, in their 
order, of the priesthood, the army, the mercantile class, 
and, at the bottom of the scale, the servile laborer. 

Of the long period of social progress from a state of 
savagery to the proud civilization of historic Egypt the 
record is faint and fragmentary. Ages passed, during 
which men struggled, and died, and left no sign — nei- 
ther hieroglyphic character, monument, nor buried city. 
Through what mental alchemy was the savage chief trans- 
formed, in the course of hundreds of generations, into the 
learned, accomplished, and astnte Egyptian priest, from 
whose courtly lips Herodotus received the chronicles of 
the Egyptian kings and the romantic stoi'y of the resi- 
dence in Egypt of Helen of Troy ?^ How^ w^ere the mem- 
bers of the savage tribe converted, one into an obedient 
soldier, another into an adroit, self-seeking merchant, and 



* ' ' Herodotus, ' Euterpe, ' " II. , §§ 112-1 16. New York : Harper & 
Brothers, 1882. 



250 MIND AND HAND, 

another into a cringing slave? These are secrets of an- 
tiquity, destined, doubtless, to remain forever unrevealed. 
We do know, however, that the civilization of Egypt, 
like all other civilizations, was the product of training or 
education ; and the nature of the education may be in- 
ferred from the character and fate of the civilization. 

Of the Egyptian system of education selfishness was 
the basis. Given chains and slavery for the lowest class 
and there were force and rapacity in the highest class. ^ 
Before the free-born savage was reduced to slavery and 
made to toil under the lash, whole hecatombs of lives 
were sacrificed. Before the mind of the savage was de- 
graded to the baseness of slavery, his body, hacked and 
hewn, bent submissively to the scourge. For the Egyp- 
tian boy there was, doubtless, a " Poor Richard's Alma- 
nack," which taught him that he must " look to the main 
chance ;" that " in the race of life the devil takes the 
hindmost ;" and that '' self-preservation is the first law of 
nature." Thus trained he entered the ranks of the priest- 
hood, one of his brothers took a commission in the army, 
and the others embarked in mercantile life. For the 
servile class there was no education beyond their sever- 
al occupations. Each man was compelled to follow the 
trade of his father, to marry within his own class, to die 
as he was born. 

Ruled by the priests, and the army, Egypt grew rich. 
Her commerce, conducted by means of caravans, embraced 
the whole civilized world and included all its products. 
She became a great military and naval power, her armies 
overrunning Asia, and her fleets sweeping the Indian 



* "The Martyrdom of Man," p. 18. By Winwood Reade. New 
York : Charles P. Somerby, 1876. 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 251 

Ocean. Her victorious campaigns opened new markets 
to her connnerce, and through tliese channels wealth 
poured into the empire. In the track of the wheels of 
the Egyptian w^ar-chariots the Egyptian merchant quick- 
ly followed. At the point of the arrows of her archers 
she offered her linen goods to conquered peoples, as Eng- 
land, at the point of the bayonet, subsequently offered 
her cotton goods to prostrate India. 

In Egypt all the learning of the time was concentrated. 
It was the university of Greece. Every intellectual Greek 
made a voyage to Egypt ; it was regarded as a part of 
education, as a pilgrimage to the cradle-land of their my- 
thology.' The possession of great wealth led to habits 
of luxury. The house of the Egyptian gentleman was a 
palace adorned with the triumphs of art, and devoted to 
pleasure. Its walls, its floors, and its furniture reflected 
the skill, not to say genius, of slaves — for all the manual 
labor of Egypt was performed by slaves. At the end of 
the fashionable dinner, given in the palace by its rich 
master, a mummy, richly painted and gilded, was present- 
ed to each guest in turn by a servant, who said, "Look 
on this ; drink and enjoy thyself, for such as it is now 
so thou shalt be when thou art dead."'^ 

One day when the priests were sacrificing in the tem- 
ples, and the chief officers of the army were dining with 
a contractor for army supplies, a band of mountaineers 
rushed out of the recesses of Persia and swept like a 
wind across the plains. They were dressed in leather ; 
they had never tasted fi'uit nor wine ; they had never 
seen a market ; they knew not how to buy or sell. They 



* "Herodotus, 'Euterpe,'" II., p. 78. New York: Harper & 
Brothers, 1882. 



252 MIND AND HAND. 

were taught three tilings — to ride on horseback, to hurl 
the javelin, and to speak the truth. "^ All Asia was cov- 
ered with blood and flames. The allied kingdoms fell at 
once, and India and Egypt were soon afterwards added 
to the Persian empire. 

Egypt typifies all the early nations. In its rise, prog- 
ress, and fall, the course of the others may be traced. 
First there is a band of hardy men whose prowess renders 
them irresistible. They are inured to toil ; they practise 
all the manly virtues; they are trained to labor with 
their hands ; they are taught to speak the truth. They 
lay the foundations of the State in industry ^ and pru- 
dence ; their children develop its resources; their chil- 
dren's children, through many generations, gradually ac- 
cumulate wealth. The arts flourish, and luxuries are mul- 
tiplied. There are many great estates, and those who in- 
herit them cease to labor, and, ceasing to labor, they be- 
come a charge upon the public ; for the value of an estate 
created one hundred years ago, or one year ago, can be 
maintained in no other way than by the labor of to-day. f 
The idlers increase in number, and the struggle for 
existence, of the workers, becomes more intense. Idle- 

* "Herodotus, ' Clio,' " I., §§ 71, 136, 153. New York : Harper & 
Brothers, 1882. 

f " It is not equitable that what one man hath done for the public 
should discharge another of what it has a right to expect from him ; 
for one, standing indebted in himself to society, cannot substitute 
anything in the room of his personal service. The father cannot 
transmit to his son the right of being useless to his fellow-creatures. 
. . . The man who earns not his subsistence, but eats the bread of 
idleness, is no better than a thief. ... To labor, then, is the indispen- 
sable duty of social or political man. Rich or poor, strong or weak, 
every idle citizen is a knave." — "Emilius and Sopliia," Vol. II., 
pp. 92, 93. By J. J. Rousseau. London: 1767. 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 253 

ness breeds vice, and the public morals are debauched.* 
We see this class at the feast of Belshazzar and at the 
dinner of the Egyptian hon vivant. On the wall of every 
such banqueting room there is an ominous handwriting, 
provided, only, that there is a Daniel to interpret it. It 
means that the nation that degrades labor, tolerates idle- 
ness, and deifies vice, is ripe for annihilation. If, now, 
there is on the frontier of the effete nation a virile people, 
it is only a question of time and opportunity, when they 
will make slaves of the revellers, and spoil of their inher- 
ited estates. The worn-out, exhausted nation disappears 
in blood and flames. The rich idler, the poor sycophant, 
the rulers and the ruled, the slave and his master, the 
priest, the soldier, the merchant, and the laborer, all go to 
destruction together. 

In the ancient nations there was always force and ra- 
pacity above, and chains and slavery below. Education 
was confined to a small class, and consisted of selfish 
maxims for the government of the many, and government 
was only another name for the appropriation of the prod- 
ucts of their labor. Selfishness bred injustice, and the 
practice of injustice undermined the State. Whether the 
State survived or fell was a matter of indifference to the 
slave. A slave he remained in any event — if not of 
the Egyptian then of the Persian. But the importance 
of labor is shown by those bloody revolutions. The bat- 
tles of antiquity were contests for the possession of the 
labor class. Which nationality — the Egyptian or the 
Persian — should drive the toilers to their daily tasks ; 
which should reap the fruit of the sweat of their brows; 
which should buy and sell them ; w^hich scourge them to 
their dungeons ? These were the questions which agitat- 
ed the minds of ancient rulers. They were the questions 



254 MIND AND HAND. 

which agitated the raind of Xerxes when he invaded 
Greece, with millions of followers, to encounter defeat 
at the hands of a few thousand men of a superior type. 

The Greek civilization sprung from mythology and 
ended in anarchy. In the East the Greeks were called 
the people of youth. Their religion was of the savage 
type. Their gods were immortalized men ; they loved 
and hated, transgressed and suffered ; they resorted to 
stratagems to comj)ass their ends ; they were a kind of 
exalted but unscrupulous aristocracy. 

Greek patriotism was narrow ; each city was politically 
independent, and the citizen of one city was an alien and 
a stranger in the territory of every other. The Greeks 
were superstitious. If the omens were unfavorable the 
general refused to give battle; the plague was a visible 
sign of the wrath of the gods ; the priests sacrificed per- 
petually ; the oracle of Apollo outlived Grecian indepen- 
dence hundreds of years." 

Grecian national festivals were childish, consisting of 
wrestling, boxing, running, jumping, and chariot-racing. 
But the victor in those games conferred everlasting glory 
upon his family and his country, and was rewarded with 
distinguished honors. 

Like savages, the Greeks were treacherous. The des- 
tiny of Greece was controlled by renegades. There was 
disloyalty in every camp, a Greek deserter in every op- 
posing army, and a traitor, or a band of traitors, in every 
besieged Greek city.' They were cruel ; of their captives 
they butchered the men and enslaved the women, and 
they stripped and robbed the bodies of the slain, on the 
battle-field. Like savages they assassinated ambassadors, 
and like savages surrendered prisoners to their personal 
enemies to be massacred.'^ Their sense of honor was dull. 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 255 

Xenophon, after winning imperishable renown, in con- 
ducting the famous retreat of the "Ten Thousand," led a 
detachment of tliem on a pillaging expedition, and so 
amassed a fortune. "My patriotism," says Alcibiades, 
" I keep not at a time when I am being wronged." 
"For there was neither promise that could be depended 
on, nor oath that struck them with fear," exclaims Thu- 
cydides."^ 

Yenality was the predominating trait in Greek charac- 
ter, and venality unrestrained is savagery. In the Greek 
Pantheon the highest niche was reserved for the God of 
Gain. The early Greeks were pirates ; they plundered 
one another ; they sometimes actually sold themselves 
into slavery, so great was their lust of gold. The richest 
cities ruled the poor cities. Pericles boasted that he 
could not be bribed, but he robbed all Greece to embel- 
lish Athens, and was accused of peculation, tried, con- 
victed, and fined. The Athenians declared that the 
Spartans were taught to steal, and the Spartans retorted 
that the best Athenians were invariably thieves. When 
Persia could no longer fight she defended her territory 
against Greek invasion with gold coins. 

The Greek orators never refused a bribe, and oratory 
ruled Greece/ Greek oratory was very persuasive. A 
discriminating writer declares that, with their fine phrases 
and rhetorical expressions, the Greek orators swindled his- 
tory, obtaining a vast amount of admiration under false 
pretences. t 

For these defects in Greek character, and for the re- 

* " The Histoiy of the Peloponnesian War," Vol. I., p. 210. Lon- 
don : George Bell & Sons. 

f "The Martyrdom of Man," p. 88. By Win wood Reade. New 
York: Charles P. Somerby, 1876. 



256 MIND AND HAND. 

suiting decay of Greek civilization, Greek philosophy and 
Greek education must be held responsible. Metaphysics 
and rhetoric ruined Greece. It was in the schools of 
rhetoric that the young Greeks received their training 
for the duties of public life. There they were taught 
the art of oratory; there they learned how to make the 
worse appear the better reason. There they were taught, 
not to expound the truth, but to indulge in the arts of 
sophistry. It was in those schools that the young Greek 
was trained to be eloquent, to win applause in the courts 
of law, not to convince the judgments of judge, or juror ; 
for judicial decisions were notoriously subjects of the 
most shameful traffic. 

The element of rectitude was wholly left out of the 
Greek system of education, and hence wholly wanting in 
Greek character. The Greeks had a profound distrust 
of one another. They were dishonest ; they were treach- 
erous; they were cruel; they were false; and all these 
vices are peculiar to a state of savagery.'' In ethics they 
never emerged from the savage state, and hence in poli- 
tics their failure was complete ; for the prime condition 
of the most simple form of civil society is mutual confi- 
dence. But the mutual distrust of the Greeks, based on 
want of integrity, was so absolute that political unity was 
impossible, and tlie failure to combine the several cities 
under one government led, eventually, to the destruction 
of Greek civilization. 

To this result Greek philosophy also contributed. 
Plato's contempt for matter was so profound that he re- 
garded the soul's residence in the body as an evil. He 
taught that the philosopher should emancipate himself 
from the illusions of sense, devoting his life to reflection, 
and surrendering his mind " to communion with its kin- 



EDUCATION AND THE aOUlAL PROBLEM. 257 

dred eternal essences."*" Contempt of matter led logically 
to contempt of the physical man, and hence to contempt 
of things, the work of man's hands. Such a philosopliy 
was necessarily " in the air." It afforded no aid to the 
sciences ; for science is the ]3roduct of generalizations 
from matter. It scorned art ; for the arts are applications 
of the sciences in useful things. With the Greek school- 
master rhetoric was the chief part of education ; with the 
Greek philosopher dialectics was the science jpar emi- 
nence. 

Thus the Greek system of education was confined to 
rhetoric and logic — the art of speaking with propriety, 
elegance, and force, and the power of deducing legiti- 
mate conclusions from assumed premises/ In the Greek 
schools of rhetoric there was no struggle to find the 
truth ; in the schools of philosophy there was no respect 
for the evidence of the senses. The Greek oi^ator har- 
angued the jury eloquently while his client bargained 
with the court for the price of justice ! The Greek phi- 
losopher confounded his audience with the force of his 
unanswerable logic, and appealed to his inner conscious- 
ness in support of the soundness of his premises ! 

The explanation of Greek duplicity is found in Greek 
metaphysics. To scorn things is to disregard facts, and 
disregard of facts is contempt of the truth. Greek edu- 
cation was confined to a consideration of the subject of 
the nature and relations of abstract ideas, while the sub- 
ject of the nature and relations of things was wholly neg- 
lected. Such a system of education led logically to 
selfishness, and out of selfishness grew inordinate am- 
bition and greed ; and these passions led, through treach- 
ery and dishonesty, to factional contests, which, eventuat- 
ing in bloodshed, could only end in anarchy. Distracted 



258 MIND AND HAND. 

by the jealousies and rivalries of States constantly in hos- 
tile conflict, and enfeebled by the never-ending strife be- 
tween the rich and the poor, Greece fell a prey to the 
rapacity, and lust of power, of her unscrupulous Roman 
neighbor. 

1 "All the happiness of families depends upon the education of 
children, and houses rise or sink according as their children are vir- 
tuous or vicious." — Plato's "Divine Dialogues," p. 262. London: S 
Coriiish«fe Co., 1839. 

- •' The Egyptians were, in the opinion of the Greeks, the wisest of 
inankimi." — ilerodotus, "Euterpe," II., § 160. New York : Harper 
& Brothers, 1882. 

"For my part, I think that Melampus, being a wise man, both ac- 
quired the art of divination, and having learned many other things 
in Egypt, introduced them among the Greeks, and particularly the 
worship of Bacchus." — Ibid, "Euterpe," II., § 49. 

"And indeed the names of almost all the Gods came from Egypt 
into Greece."— Ibid, "Euierpe," XL, §50. 

"The manner in which oracles are delivered at Thebes in Egypt 
and at Dodona, is very similar; and the art of divination from vic- 
tims came likewise from Egypt."— Ibid, "Euterpe," II., § 57. 

" The Egyptians were also the first who introduced public festi- 
vals, processions, and solemn supplications: And the Greeks learned 
these from them." — Ibid, " Euterpe," II., § 57, 

To the same efifect, see also: 
Ibid, "Euterpe," II., §64. 
" §109. 
" §123. 
" §160. 
" §§164-166. 
" §171. 

And Ibid, "Melpomene," IV., § 180. 

^ "Amasis it was who established the law among the Egyptians 
that every Egyptian should annually declare to the governor of his 
district by what means he maintained himself; and if he failed to do 
this, or did not show that iie lived by honest means, he should be 
punished with death. Solon, the Athenian, having brought this law 
from Egypt, established it at Athens; and that people still continue 
to observe it, as being an unobjectionable regulation." — Herodotus, 
" Euterpe," II., § 177. New York : Harper & Brothers, 1882. 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 259 

* "Lysimachus, son of Aristides the Just, and Melesias, son of 
Thucydides, to the Athenian generals, Nicias and Laches: 

"Both he and I have entertained onr children with thousands of 
brave actions done by our fathers both in peace and war, wliile they 
headed the Athenians and their allies; but to our great misfortune 
we can tell tliem no such thing of ourselves. Tins covers us with 
shame; we blush for it before our children, and are forced to cast 
tlie blame upon our fathers; who, after we grew up, suffered us to 
live in effeminacy and luxury; while they were employing all their 
care for the interest of the public."— Plato's "Divine Dialogues," p. 
256. London: S. Cornish & Co., 1839. 

^ "After the encounter between the cavalry had taken place, Ages- 
ilaus, on offering sacrifice the next day wilh a view to advancing, 
found the victims inunspicious, and in consequence of this indication 
turned off and proceeded toward the coast." — Xenophon, "Hellenics," 
p. 369. London: George Bell & Sons, 1881. 

See, also, Thucydides, Vol. II., p. 348. London: George Bell & 
Sons, 1880. 

And Ibid, Vol. IL, p. 484. 

And, "Plutarch's Lives [Timoleon]," p. 177. New York: Harper 
& Brothers, 1850. 

^ Alcibiades to the Lacedaemonians: "And now, I beg that I may 
not be the worse thought of by any among you, because I am now 
strenuously attacking my country with its bitterest enemies, though I 
formerly had a reputation for patriotism." — Thucydides, Vol. II., p. 
439. London: George Bell & Sons, 1880. 

Of Pausanias and Themistocles, who were both traitors, Thucy- 
dides says: "Such was the end of Pausanias the Lacedaemonian and 
Themistocles the Athenian, who had bee7i the most distinguished of 
all the Greeks in their day." — " History of the Peloponuesian War," 
Vol. I., pp. 75-83. 

See also Ibid, Vol. I., p. 288. 

pp. 292-293. 
p. 304. 
pp. 306-307. 
p. 241. 
" Vol. II. , p. 510. 

See also Herodotus, "Melpomene," IV., § 142. New York: Har- 
per & Brothers, 1882. 

' " When the Corcyraeans had got possession of them [prisoners 
surrendered by their allies the Athenians] they shut them up in a 
large building, and, afterward taking them out by twenties, led them 



360 MIND AND HAND. 

through two rows of heavy-armed soldiers posted on each side; the 
prisoners being bound together were beaten and stabbed by the men 
ranged in the lines, whejiever any of them happened to see a personal 
enemy; while men carrying whips went by their side, and hastened 
on the way those that were proceeding too slowly." — Thucydides.* 
Vol I., pp. 256-257. London: George Bell & Sons, 1880. 

Ibid, Vol.1., p. 62. . 

II., p. 376. 
II., p. 468. 
II., p. 495. 
II., pp. 510-511. 
IL, p. 523, 

See also Herodotus, "Terpsichore," V., § 6. 
Ibid, "Terpsichore," V.,§ 21- 
Ibid, "Urania," VII., §§ 104, 105. 106. 

See also Xenophou, "Hellenics," p. 328- London: George Bell 
& Sons, 1882. 

See also ''Plutarch's Lives [Lycargus]," p. 42. New York : Har- 
per & Brothers, 1850. 

8 "For the Grecians in old time, . . . turned to piracy, . . 
and falling upon towns that were unfortified, . . . they rifled 
them, and made most of their livelihood by this means." . . . 
"For through desire of gain the lower orders submitted to be slaves 
to their betters; and the more powerful, having a superabundance 
of money, brought the smaller cities into subjection." — Thucydides, 
Vol. I., pp. 3, 4, 5. London : George Bell & Sons, 1880. 

"Yet that the boys might not suffer too much from hunger, Ly- 
curgus, though he did not allow them to take what they wanted with- 
out trouhle, gave them leave to steal certain things to relieve the 
cravings of nature; and hemade it honorable to steal as many cheeses 
as possible.'' — Xenophon's " Minor Works," p. 208. London: George 
Bell & Sons, 1882. 

"Demosthenes could not resist the temptation; it made all the 
impression upon him that was expected; he received the money, like 
a garrison into his house, and went over to the interest of Harpalus. 
Next day he came into the Assembly with a quantjty of wool and 
bandages about his neck ; and when the people called upon him to get 
up and speak, he made signs that he had lost his voice, upon which 
some that were by said, 'it was no common hoarseness that he got 
in the night; it was a hoarseness occasioned by swallowiog gold and 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 261 

silver,'" — "Plutarch's Lives [Demosthenes]," pp. 594-595. New 
York : Harper & Brothers, 1850. 

See also, " Plutarch's Lives [Agesilaus]," p. 431. New York : Har- 
per & Brothers, 1850. 

Ibid [Demosthunos], p. 591. 
" [Aristides], p. 232. 

"And Plato, among all that were accounted great and illustrious 
men in Athens, judged none but Aristides worthy of real esteem." 
— "Plutarch's Lives [Aristides]," p. 243. New York: Harper & 
Brothers, 1850. 

But it was Aristides who said of a public measure : " It is not just, 
but it is expedient." 

"As to the proceedings in courts of law they [the Athenians] have 
less regard to what is just than to what is profitable to themselves." 
— Xenophon's "Minor Works," pp. 235-236. London : George Bell 
& Sons, 1882. 

Ibid, pp. 243, 244. 

When Mardonius the Persian consulted with the Thebans how to 
subdue Greece, they said: " Send money to the most powerful men 
in the cities, and by sending it you will split Greece into parties, and 
then, with the assistance of those of your party, you may easily 
subdue those who are not in your interest." — Herodotus, "Cal- 
liope," IX., § 2. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1882. 

Ibid, "Urania," VIIL, §§ 128-134. 
" "Calliope," IX., §44. 

See also "Plutarch's Lives [Pericles]," p. 123. New York : Har- 
per & Brothers, 1850. 

Ibid, "Pericles," p. 118. 
" "Pericles," p. 115, note. 

"Accordingly, as the Athenians state, these men while staying at 
Delphi, prevailed on the Pythian bv money, when any Spartans 
should come thither to consult the oracle, either on their own ac- 
count or that of the public, to propose to them to liberate Athens 
from servitude."— Herodotus, " Terpsichore," V., § 63. New York : 
Harper & Brothers, 1882 . 

Ibid, "Erato," VI., §§ 72, 100. 

^ Euripides makes Andromache say: " O, ye inhabitants of Sparta, 
most hated of mortals among all men, crafty in counsel, king of liars, 
concoctors of evil plots, crooked and thinking nothing soundly, 
but all things tortuously, unjustly are ye prospered in Greece. And 
what evil is there not in you ? Are there not abundant murders? Are 



263 MIND AND HAND. 

ye not given to base gain? Are ye not detected speaking ever one 
thing with the tongue but thinking another? A murrain seize you ! " 
— "The Tragedies of Euripides [Andromache]," VoL IT, p. 138. 
New York : Harper & Brothers, 1857. 

^^ "Is it not by reasoning tliat the soul embraces truths? And 
does it not reason better than before when it is not encumbered by 
seeing or hearing, by pain or pleasure? When shut up within itself 
it bids adieu to the body, and entertains as little correspondence 
with it as possible; and pursues the knowledge of things without 
touching tiiem. ... Is it not especially upon this occasion that 
the soul of a philosopher despises and avoids the body and wants to 
be by it-eU? . . . Now, the purgation of the soul, as we were 
sa}ing just now, is only its separation from the body, its accustom- 
ing itself to retire and lock itself up, renouncing all commerce with 
it as much as possible, and living by itself, whether in this or the 
other world, without being chained to the body." — Plato's "Divine 
Dialogues," pp. 180, 181, 182. London : S. Cornish & Co., 1839. 

11 «' During most of the flourishing age of Hellenistic culture the 
rhetor was the acknowledged practical teacher ; and his course, 
which occupied severed years, with the interruption of the summer 
holidays, comprised first a careful reading of classical authors, both 
poetical and prose, with explanations and illustrations. This made 
the student acquainted with the language and literature of Greece. 
But it was only introductory to the technical study of expression, 
of eloquence based on these models, and of accurate writing as a col- 
lateral branch of this study. When a man had so perfected himself, 
he was considered fit for public employment." — " Old Greek Educa- 
tion," p. 137. By J. P. Mahaffy, M.A. New York; Harper & 
Brothers, 1882. 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PKOBLEM. 26\i 



CHAPTER XXII. 
EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM— HISTORIC. 

ROME. 

Vigor of the Early Romans — their Virtues and Vices ; their Rigorous 
Laws; their Defective Education; their Contempt of Labor. — Slav- 
ery: its Horrors and Brutalizing Influence. — Education Confined 
to the Arts of Politics and War ; it transformed Courage into 
Cruelty, and Fortitude into Stoicism. — Robbery and Bribery. — The 
Vices of Greece and Carthage imported into Rome. — Slaves con- 
struct all the great Public Works; they Revolt, and the Legions 
Slaughter them. — The Gothic Invasion.— Rome Falls.— False Phi- 
losophy and Superficial Education promoted Selfishness. — Deifica- 
tion of Abstractions, and Scorn of Men and Things. — Universal 
Moral Degradation. — Neglect of Honest Men and Promotion of 
Demagogues. — The Decline of Morals and Growth of Literature. — 
Darwin's Law of Reversion, through Selfishness, to Savagery. — 
Contest between the Rich and the Poor. — Logic, Rhetoric, and 
Ruin. 

In the city of the Seven Hills there was no statue to 
Pity, as at Athens. In the long line of Roman conquer- 
ors there was no one possessing the title to fame, of 
which, on his death -bed, Pericles boasted, namely, that 
'^ no Athenian had ever worn mourning on his account." 

The dominion of Rome was logical. In the legend of 
Romulus and Remus, suckled by the she-wolf, there is a 
hint of the rugged vigor which characterized the Roman 
people, and distinguished them from the earlier nationali- 
ties. In all the civilizations anterior to that of Rome there 
was an element of pliability or softness wliich belongs to 
the youth of man. But from the day on which Romulus, 



264 MIND AND HAND. 

with the brazen ploughshare, drew a furrow around the 
Palatine, both the sinews and the souls of his followers 
hardened into maturity. The rising walls of the city, so 
the legend runs, were moistened with the life-drops of 
Remus, whose derisive remark and act cost him his life, 
his slayer exclaiming, haughtily, " So perish all who dare 
to climb these ramparts." The rape of the Sabines, the 
conflicts which ensued with that outraged people, their 
incorporation with the conquerors, their subsequent joint 
conquests, and the shrewdness displayed in the conserva- 
tion of the fruits of victory — these events show that man 
had attained his majority. Under the shadow of the 
walls of the Eternal City all the great races were associ- 
ated and mingled — Latins, Trojans, Greeks, Sabines, and 
Etruscans. The Roman civilization was the product of 
all that had gone before, as it was destined to be the fa- 
ther of all that should follow it. The Roman had no 
peer either in courage or fortitude. Aspiring to uni- 
versal dominion, he toughened himself to achieve it. 
Dooming his enemy to death or slavery, he was not less 
self - exacting, his own life, through the cup of poison, 
the sword, or the opened vein, becoming the forfeit 
equally of misfortune and shame. The tragic fate of 
Lucretia, the resulting revohition, the banishment of the 
Tarquins, and the abolition of the kingly government 
show the swiftness of Roman retribution and the terrible 
force of Roman resolution. Roman persistence in the 
path of conquest for many centuries is typified by Cato in 
his invocation of destruction upon Carthage. The mas- 
culine character of the Roman vices finds illustration in 
the struggle of Appius, the Decemvir, to possess the per- 
son of Virginia by wresting the law from its true pur- 
pose, the conservation of justice, and converting it into a 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 265 

shield for lust ; and the vigor of Roman virtue is exem- 
plified in the act of Yirginius plunging the knife into the 
heart of his beloved daughter to save her honor. The 
rigorous laws of Eome testify to the stamina of her peo- 
ple. The father to whom a deformed son was born must 
cause the child to be put to death, and any citizen might 
kill the man who betrayed the design of becoming king. 
A scientific system of education would have conserved 
and developed the noble and eliminated the ignoble traits 
of Roman character. But neither Roman education, phi- 
losophy, nor ethics inculcated either respect for labor or 
reverence for human rights ; and hence the laborer was 
reduced to slavery, and the slave made the victim of ev- 
ery known atrocity. Slavery became the corner-stone of 
the Roman State, and slavery and labor were synonymous 
terms. The Roman supj^ly of laborers was maintained 
by depopulating conquered countries. In the train of 
the legions, returning to Rome in triumph, there were 
not only statues, paintings, and other works of art, but 
thousands of men, women, and children destined to slav- 
ery. And the laws in regard to slaves were terrible, as 
laws touching slavery must always be — for a state of 
slavery is a state of war. It was a law of Rome that if 
a slave murdered his master the whole family of slaves 
should be put to death ; and Tacitus relates an instance 
of the execution of four hundred slaves for the murder 
of a citizen, their master. In the course of the servile 
rebellion in Sicily a million slaves were killed; and it 
should be borne in mind that they were valuable labor- 
ers — many of them skilled artisans. Yast numbers of 
them were exposed to wild beasts in the arena, for the 
popular amusement. The rebellion of the gladiators was 
put down only by a resort to awful atrocities, among 



266 MIND AND HAND. 

which was the crucifixion of prisoners. The revolt of 
the allies was qnelled at the cost of half a million lives. 
But slaves were plenty, for Rome had her bloody hand 
at the throat of all mankind, and her hoarse cry was, 
" Your life or your liberty !" 

Every Roman freeman was a soldier, and the cultiva- 
tion of the land, manufactures, and all the pursuits of in- 
dustry, were carried on by slaves. Slave labor was cheap- 
er than the labor of animals ; cattle were taken from 
the plough and slaughtered for beef that slaves — men — 
might take their places. Labor fell to the lowest degree 
of contempt, and the laborer was a thing to be spurned 
— for the free citizen to labor with his hands was more 
disgraceful than to die of starvation. Hence there was a 
class of citizen paupers to whom largesses of corn were 
doled out by the demagogues of the Senate and the army. 
Ultimately these citizen-paupers became so vile and filthy 
that they engendered leprosy and other loathsome dis- 
eases, as they dragged their palsied limbs through the 
streets of the city, crying, ^' Bread and circuses ! bread 
and circuses !" 

Roman education was confined almost exclusively to 
the training of the sons of rich citizens in the arts of 
politics and war; and in a State where labor was de- 
spised, and whose corner-stone was slavery, and whose 
shibboleth was conquest, the baseness of these arts may 
be imagined but hardly described. It promoted selfish- 
ness, and in the course of centuries selfishness transform- 
ed Roman courage into cruelty, and Roman fortitude 
into brutal stoicism. The Roman sense of justice was 
swallowed up in Roman lust of power. Rome became 
the great robber nation of the world. She was on the 
land what Greece had once been on the sea — a pirate. 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 267 

She made the streets of the cities she conquered run 
with blood. Thousands of captives she doomed to death ; 
other thousands graced the triumphs of her generals, and 
the spoil saved from the fury of the flames, and the more 
ungovernable fury of the licentious soldiery, was carried 
home to the Eternal City, there to fall into the hands of 
the most cunning among the demagogues, for use in the 
bribery of courts, senators, and the populace. 

Tacitus deplored the decline of public virtue. He de- 
clared, mournfully, that "l^othing was sacred, nothing 
safe from the hand of rapacity." His environment blind- 
ed him to the true cause of the depravity he so elo- 
quently deplored — selfishness. Had he been familiar with 
the inductive method he would have found in a defective 
system of education the cause of Roman venality and cor- 
ruption. He might thus have realized the weakness of a 
community of men who wanted the necessary force and 
virtue to depose a Tiberius and elevate to his place a 
Germanicus ; or to dethrone a Domitian and crown in 
his stead an Agricola. 

Education in Rome deified selfishness, and hence real- 
ized its last analysis — total depravity. Of course noth- 
ing was sacred in a community where men were ruth- 
lessly trampled underfoot ! Of course nothing was "safe 
from the hand of rapacity" where the laborer was de- 
graded to a place in the social scale below the leprous 
pauper whose filthy person provoked disgust, and whose 
poisonous breath, as he cried for bread, spread abroad 
disease and death ! 

It was inevitable that the nation that grew rich through 
plunder should grow poor in public and private virtue. 
And such w^as the fact. The eagles that protected rob- 
bers abroad, spread their sheltering wings over defaulters. 



268 MIND AND HAND. 

bribers, and thieves at home. There had been a time in 
Rome when bribery was punishable with death, but now 
candidates for office sat at tables in the streets near the 
polling-places and openly paid the citizens for their votes. 
The change in the habits of the people was as pronounced 
as the change in the laws. The early triumphs of the 
Romans were industrial — flocks and herds ; their tro- 
pliies, obtained in single combat, consisted of spears and 
helmets. When Cincinnatus was sent for to assume 
the dictatorship he was found in his field following the 
plough. Yalerius, four times consul, and by Livy char- 
acterized as the first man of his time, died so poor that 
he had to be buried at the public charge. But with the 
fall of Greece and Carthage, and the reduction of Asia, 
there was a great social change at Rome. The Roman 
legions not only carried home the wealth of the coun- 
tries they conquered but the vices of the peoples they 
subdued. An ancient writer summarizes the situation 
in the following graphic sentence : " The only fashiona- 
ble principles were to acquire wealth by every means of 
avarice and injustice, and to dissipate it by every method 
of luxury and profusion." 

The end is not far off. The story of Persia, of Egypt, 
and of Greece is the story equally of Rome. Avarice 
and injustice, luxury and profusion do their sure work. 
The Roman civilization is more than a thousand years 
old. Asiatic wealth, the luxury and false philosophy of 
Greece, and a vicious system of education, promoting 
selfishness, have united to sap its foundations. Society 
is divided into three classes — an aristocracy based solely 
upon wealth, cruel and profligate, a mob of free citizens, 
otherwise paupers, who live by beggary and the sale of 
their votes, and laborers who are slaves. 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 269 

On the occasion of the presentation of spectacles, 
among a variety of presents slaves (laborers) are thrown 
into the arena to be scrambled for by the free citizens ! 
But men are cheap. In Asia they sell for sixpence 
apiece, and Rome has only to send an army there to get 
them for nothing. To this class, to these slaves, however, 
the Roman people are indebted for all the arts which 
make life agreeable. They construct all the great public 
works. They build the splendid roads over w^hich the 
Roman legions follow their generals in triumph home to 
Rome. They make the aqueducts, dig the canals, and 
construct the buildings, public and private, whose re- 
mains still attest their magnificence — the Forum, the 
amphitheatres, and the golden house of the Csesars. 
They build the villas overlooking the Bay of Naples, in 
which the nobles live in riot and wantonness ; they cook 
the dinners given in those villas ; they make the clothes 
the nobles wear, and the jewels that adorn their persons. 
They cultivate the fields, follow the plough, ti-ain and 
trim the vine, and gather in the harvest. They raise the 
corn that is distributed by the nobles among the soldiery, 
and given as a bribe to the diseased and debauched free 
citizens for their votes. They feel deeply the injustice 
of their lot, and, like men, strike for liberty. But the 
Roman legions are set on them like blood-hounds, and 
hundreds of thousands of them are slaughtered and made 
food for birds of prey, and other thousands are thrown 
into the arena to be torn by wild beasts, and still others 
are bestowed as gifts upon the populace at the games. 

The contest between the rich and the poor is at an 
end ; the rich are millionaires, the j)Oor are beggars. It 
is the story of Dives and Lazarus over again. The rich 
are clothed in purple and fine linen, and fare sumptuous- 



270 MIND AND HAND. 

\j every day ; the poor are full of sores, and live upon 
the crumbs that fall from the tables of the rich. Rome 
topples to her fall. The Gothic invader is at her gates, 
and there is no army to defend them. The barbarian 
demands a ransom. To obtain it the statues are despoiled 
of their ornaments and precious stones, and the gods of 
gold and silver are melted in the fire. The ransom is 
given, and Alaric retires. Bnt he returns, and this time 
to pillage. The city is sacked ; rich and poor, bond and 
free, are whelmed in one common ruin. At last the 
diabolic wish of the infamous Caligula is realized. The 
Roman people have but one neck, and the Goth puts his 
foot upon it. Rome falls, the victim of her own crimes, 
strangled by her own gluttony. Thus ends the first 
period of the world's manhood — ends in exhaustion, and 
a syncope which is destined to last a thousand years. 

Long before the fall of the republic Rome had become 
the seat of all the world's learning. In robbing con- 
quered countries she not only took their gold and silver, 
a share of their people for slaves, and their works of art, 
but their libraries, their philosophy, and their literature. 
But neither the Greek nor the Roman philosophy con- 
tributed in the least to a solution of the pressing social 
problems of the time. The wise men of Rome w^ere 
powerless to help either themselves or their fellow-men, 
because their philosophy was false. It was purely spec- 
ulative ; it had no body of facts to rest upon. 

The Roman educators and philosophers were almost as 
ignorant of physiology as Plato was hundreds of years 
before, hence they were unable to study the mind in the 
sole way in which it is intelligently approachable, name- 
ly, through its bodily manifestations. In studying the 
mind as an independent entity there could be no general 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 271 

rules of investigation. The metaphysical philosopher did 
not study the mind of man ; he explored his own mind 
merely — consulted his own inner consciousness. Hence 
there were, in Rome, as many systems of philosophy, 
more or less clearly defined and distinct, as there were 
philosophers. But they were merely metaphysical spec- 
ulations, dreams, dependent upon purely subjective proc- 
esses ; and those processes were in turn dependent upon 
the ever-changing states of mind of each philosopher. 

It is obvious that these systems of philosophy could 
exert no influence upon the community at large, for the 
community formed no part of the subject matter of their 
speculations. But they did exert an influence, and a 
very pernicious one, upon the philosophers themselves, 
and indeed upon all the cultured men of Rome ; for they 
were thereby made thoroughly selfish, and so rendered in- 
capable of forming a just judgment of public affairs. In 
considering the mind apart from the body, the body nat- 
urally fell into utter contempt. This was the great crime 
of speculative philosophy ; for in engendering a feeling 
of contempt for the human body it furnished an excuse 
for slavery. And this contempt logically included man- 
ual labor, for the only manual laborer was a slave ; and 
it also extended to the useful arts, for all those arts were 
the work of slaves. Hence the laborer, being a slave, 
was placed lower in the social scale than the pauper who 
sold his vote for a glass of wine. And thus it came 
about that a factitious right — the right of suffrage — was 
more highly esteemed by the public than the cardinal 
virtue of industry, upon which alone the perpetuity of 
the social compact depends. 

And, again, the wretched state of public morals may be 
inferred from the fact that the right of suffrage, through 



272 MIND AND HAND. 

which the idle, leprous pauper was elevated above the 
industrious laborer and above the useful arts, was notori- 
ously the subject of -open traffic in the streets of Rome 
on every election day. Thus Eoman philosophy landed 
the Roman people in the last ditch, for it led to the dei- 
fication of abstract ideas and to scorn of things. That 
this utter perversion of the truth and wreck of justice 
was the cause of the decline of the Roman Empire there 
is no doubt. 

It is equally plain that the noted men of Rome were 
utterly ignorant of the cause of the disorders which af- 
flicted the body politic. There is no evidence, either in 
their lives or their works, that they brought to the con- 
sideration of the great social problems of the time any 
practical philosophy whatever. Suetonius, with a graphic 
pen, portrays the cruelties of the Csesars, but hints at 
no cause therefor inherent in the social system. Cicero 
forecasts the doom of the republic, but has no remedy 
to propose except that of the elevation of Pompey rather 
than Csesar. Livy and Tacitus deplore the decay of 
public and private virtue, but are silent on the subject 
of the infamy of slavery and on the shame of degrading 
labor. The moral sentiments of Seneca and Aurelius 
are of the most elevated character, but the fact that they 
ignore slavery, the slave, the laborer, and the useful arts, 
shows either that they never thought upon those funda- 
mental social questions, or that their thoughts ran in the 
popular channel ; in a word, that their philosophy was 
so shallow as to render them callous to the great crimes 
upon which the Roman State rested. 

That the subjective philosophy and the defective edu- 
cational system of the Romans rendered them selfish, 
and hence corrupt, there is abundant evidence. Cicero 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 273 

professed the most lofty patriotism, but he was without 
moral courage. It was he who congratulated the public 
men of Rome, after the usurpation of Csesar, upon the 
privilege of remaining " totally silent !" He regarded 
Pompey as "tlie greatest man the world had ever pro- 
duced," but deserted him in his extremity, which was 
equally the extremity of his country. He denounced 
Csesar as the cause of the culminating misfortunes of 
Rome, but went down upon his knees to him, and rose 
to his feet only to exhaust all the resources of his match- 
less eloquence in fulsome adulation of the destroyer of 
the Republic. 

Seneca's moral precepts are sublime, but his political 
maxims are atrocious. Witness this pretence of an all- 
embracing love for man — " Whenever thou seest a fel- 
low-creature in distress know that thou seest a human 
being." Contrast with this exalted sentiment of the 
great stoic his political maxim — " Terror is the safe- 
guard of a kingdom" — and reflect that he lived under 
the reigns of Claudius and Nero. The millions of slaves 
in the Roman dominions were "human beings," but 
Seneca had no practical regard for them as "fellow- 
creatures in distress." His beautiful humanitarian sen- 
timent was a barren ideality — it bore no fruit ; but his 
brutal political maxim caused him to thrive. Under the 
favor of Claudius he amassed a vast fortune. His 
palace in the city was sumptuously furnished, his coun- 
try-seats were splendidly appointed, and he possessed 
abundance of ready money. " There can be no happiness 
without virtue," exclaims this prosperous Roman citizen. 
But while he pens this lofty sentiment he is accused of 
avarice, usury, and extortion, charged with complicity in 
the Piso conspiracy, and banished for the crime of adultery. 



274 MIND AND HAND. 

The debasing influence of the Greek philosophy, upon 
the Roman people, is shown by contrasting the charac- 
ters of the distinguished men who were honored by the 
public at widely separated periods of time. Thus, dur- 
ing the period 400-350 B.C., Camillus, noted above all 
his contemporaries for the purity of his public life, was 
uninterruptedly honored with the highest offices in the 
State, and loved and respected by all classes of the com- 
munity. But three hundred years later Caesar, who in- 
volved the country in civil war to com|)ass his ambition, 
and in which struggle liberty perished — he was pre- 
ferred, in all the political struggles preliminary to his as- 
sumption of supreme power, to Cato, whose patriotism 
was unquestioned, and whose rigid virtue was prover- 
bial throughout the Roman Empire. So also of a still 
later period, Agricola and Germanicus were renowned for 
the possession of the highest qualities of true manhood, 
joined to the practice in public life of the most austere 
and self-sacrificing virtue. Both served the State with 
courage, ability, and zeal; but the one, after a brilliant 
career in the West, was forced into retirement, and the 
other, after splendid services in the East, was exiled and 
poisoned. 

Previous to the introduction of the Greek philoso- 
phy, and the Greek education and social habits, the Ro- 
man people were worthy of their noblest representative 
— Camillus. At that early period of their history they 
rewarded virtue and punished vice. But during the Em- 
pire, after the invasion of Greek manners, they were 
unworthy of their best representatives — Cato, Germani- 
cus, and Agricola. To those great and good men they 
preferred Caesar, Caligula, and ISTero : they rewarded vice 
and punished virtue. There is in this circumstance un- 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 275 

questionable evidence of a great declension in character. 
But the remarkable fact in regard to this period of Ro- 
man history is tliat the declension in character was ac- 
companied by a species of great mental growth or power. 

Daring this period a literature was created which has 
ever since been famous, and which still exerts a consid- 
erable influence upon man. Csesar's Commentaries, the 
Orations of Cicero, the Annals of Tacitus, Livy's History, 
the Odes and Satires of Horace, the Meditations of Au- 
relius, and the Morals of Seneca are in all the world's 
libraries, and, in the universities, are placed in the hands 
of the most favored youth of all the civilized countries 
of the world, as models of style and exponents of a civ- 
ilization whence all modern civilizations sprung. But 
this literature possessed no saving quality, because in so 
far as it was elevated in morals it did not represent the 
Roman people, not even the authors themselves general- 
ly, as has been shown. As a matter of fact, during the 
period of the creation of the great literature of Rome, 
Darwin's law of "reversion" was in active operation. 
There was a " black sheep " in every noble Roman fami- 
ly. Bad men appeared, not now and then, at long inter- 
vals, as in all civilizations, but every day and everywhere ; 
and these men were political and social leaders. They 
moulded the policy of the State and set the fashion in 
society. Under their direction the Roman people retro- 
graded towards a state of savagery, and savagery is but 
another name for selfishness. Selfishness in its worst 
estate is the essence of human depravity, and to that con- 
dition the Roman people fell, at the time when their mor- 
alists were inditing those sublime sentiments which still 
challenge the admiration of all great and good men. 

That the Roman people were as dead to the influence 



276 MIND AND HAND, 

of high moral sentiments as the Britons were when first 
encountered hj Caesar, shows that they had degener- 
ated to a similar condition of savagery, or to a condi- 
tion of absolute selfishness, which is its moral equivalent. 
Given a savage state, two savages and one dimier; the 
savages will fight to the death for the dinner. Given a 
state of civilization absolutely selfish, two contestants and 
one prize ; each contestant will exhaust all the resources 
of artifice, duplicity, and falsehood to secure the prize. 
To this deplorable condition the Roman people were re- 
duced by subjective educational processes. Selfishness 
causes the individual to seek his own interest in total dis- 
regard of the interest of others. Hence it tends directly 
to the disintegration of society, since the essence of the 
civil compact is the pledge of each member of the com- 
munity that he will do no injury to his fellows. Selfish- 
ness violates this pledge ; for to gain its end it ruthlessly 
crushes whatever appears in its path. 

In Eome selfishness did its complete work. It trans- 
formed the government from a pure democracy into an 
oligarchy composed of wealthy citizens, who called them- 
selves nobles. By this class wealth was made the sole 
standard of social and political distinction, and in its 
presence, and through its influence, the old strife between 
the patricians and the plebeians gave way to a state of 
hostility between the rich and the poor — always the last 
analysis of social disorder. The contest was distinguished 
by assassinations, embezzlements of the public money, 
the quarrels of rival demagogues, and civil wars, and it 
culminated in Caesar and the empire. 

The nobles, or aristocrats, who wrought the work of 
transformation, were refined and elegant in their man- 
ners, and accomplished in the tricks of finance, the tech- 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 277 

nicalities of the law, and the arts of oratory. They were 
the product of the Roman schools of rhetoric and logic, 
whose subjective methods obscured the truth, promoted 
vanity, and deified selfishness. All the guards of honor 
and rectitude having been swept away by Caesar, a savage 
contest for supremacy ensued among the aristocrats. The 
prize for which they contended consisted of the spoil of 
the Eoman legions and the product of the labor of the 
Roman slaves. This was the Roman patrimony — the 
price of blood and of the sweat of enforced toil. For 
this prize the Roman aristocrats struggled like savages 
fighting for the one dinner. 

It is the old struggle, the struggle witnessed by each, 
in turn, of the nations of antiquity — the struggle in which 
selfishness vanquishes itself. But this is a struggle of 
giants, is on a grander scale, and is more conspicuous, 
for the historian, pen in hand, records its bloody scenes. 
It is the last act in a great drama, a drama that has lasted 
a thousand years. It is the conclusion of the long strug- 
gle of a few large- brained, unscrupulous individuals, to 
grasp the fruits of the toil of all men. The conspirators 
are about to fail, as such conspiracies have always failed 
and must always fail, and like Samson in his blind fury 
they will pull down upon their own devoted heads the 
pillars of the temple. The struggle culminates in a hand- 
to-hand conflict for the mastery between the bafiied chiefs 
of the conspiracy to enslave mankind — the supreme ef- 
fort of selfishness — and it involves the authors and their 
victims in one common disaster. Once more it is proved 
that a false system of education, a system which exalts 
abstract ideas and degrades things, promotes selfishness ; 
that selfishness is the equivalent of savagery, and that 
savagery, however refined, wrecks society. 



278 MIND AND HAND. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 
EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM-HISTORIC. 

THE MIDDLE AGES. 

The Trinity upon which Civilization Rests : Justice, the Arts, and 
Labor; and these Depend upon Scientific Education. — Reason of 
the Failure of Theodoric and Charlemagne to Reconstruct the 
Pagan Civilization. — Contempt of Man. — Serfdom. — The Vices of 
the Time : False Philosophy, an Odious Social Caste, and Igno- 
rance. — The Splendid Career of the Moors in Spain, in Contrast. — 
Effect upon Spain of the Expulsion of the Moors. —The Repressive 
Force of Authority and the Atrocious Philosophy of Contempt of 
Man.— The Rule of Italy — a Menace and a Sneer.— The work of 
Regeneration. — The Crusades. — The Destruction of Feudalism. — 
The Invention of Printing. — The Discovery of America. — Investi- 
gation. — Discoveries in Science and Art. 

Civilization languishes in an atmosphere of injustice, 
and if the injustice is gross, as slavery, for example, and 
long continued, the State perishes in the social convul- 
sion which ensues. Thus perished the nations of an- 
tiquity. Civilization depends upon the useful arts ; in 
them it had its origin, and with them it advances. The 
savage, in his most primitive state, is ignorant of all the 
arts ; the most highly civilized man is familiar with, and 
under obligations to, all of them. The useful arts de- 
pend upon labor. If the laborer is degraded, the use- 
ful arts decline, as he sinks, in the social scale ; if he is 
honored, they advance, as he rises. The trinity upon 
which civilization rests is, therefore, justice, the useful 
arts, and labor ; and this trinity of saving forces depends 
in turn upon the scientific education of man. Rome 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 279 

held all these things in contempt, and Rome perished. 
Anarchy ensued, and, from a state of governmental cha- 
os, the feudal system was evolved. A brief analysis 
of the history of the mediaeval period will show that 
education was unscientific, and consequently that jus- 
tice was scorned, the useful arts neglected, and labor 
despised. 

Theodoric strove to stem the tide of demoralization 
which succeeded the overthrow of the pagans in Italy. 
He was a semi-barbarian, but a man of genius, and ten 
years of his youth, spent at Constantinople, taught him 
the value of civilization. Under his reign there was 
a restoration of the common industries, work on inter- 
nal improvements w^as resumed, and there was a reviv- 
al of polite literature and the fine arts. But there was 
no general prosperity because there was no general sys- 
tem of education. Polite literature must rest upon a 
basis of general culture, or it is valueless to the country 
in which it flourishes. So of the fine arts ; they can ex- 
ist legitimately only as the natural outgrowth and em- 
bellishment of the useful arts.* In the due order of de- 
velopment the useful precede the fine arts. Theodoric 
began the reconstruction of the exhausted Roman civili- 
zation from the top, and his work was a complete failure, 

* "But it is one thing to admit that aesthetic culture is in a high 
degree conducive to human happiness, and another thing to admit 
that it is a fundamental requisite to human happiness. However 
important it may be, it must yield precedence to those kinds of cult- 
ure which bear more directly upon the duties of life. As before 
hinted, literature and the fine arts are made possible by those activi- 
ties which make individual and social life possible; and manifestly 
that which is made possible must be postponed to that which makes 
it possible." — " Education," p. 72. By Herbert Spencer. New York: 
D. Appleton & Co., 1883. 



280 MIND a:^D hand. 

of course, because it had no foundation. It was like the 
Greek and Roman philosophy, it had no basis of things 
to rest upon. Hence the order evoked from chaos bj 
the great Ostrogoth to chaos soon returned. 

Charlemagne also attempted to reconstruct a worn-out 
civilization through the revival of polite literature and 
the fine arts. He assembled at his court distinguished 
litterateurs from all parts of the world, with the view 
of reviving classical learning. He established a normal 
school called " The Palatine," whence classically trained 
teachers were sent into the provinces. He constructed 
gorgeous palaces, some of which were ornamented with 
columns and sculptural fragments, the spoil of the earlier 
architectural triumphs of Italy. But he did not found 
schools for the education of the common people. The 
common people were serfs. The theory of Plato still 
prevailed, namely, that the majority is always dull, and 
always wrong; that wisdom and virtue reside in the 
minority. In pursuance of this theory, which happens, 
curiously enough, to inure to the exclusive benefit of its 
inventors and supporters, education was confined to a 
small class. The training of tlie masses was wholly neg- 
lected, and they were poor, ignorant, and brutal. The 
state of mediaeval society is graphically summarized by a 
modern historian : 

'' In the castle sits the baron, with his children on his 
lap, and his wife leaning on his shoulder; the troubadour 
sings, and the page and the demoiselle exchange a glance 
of love. The castle is the home of music and chivalry 
and family affection ; the convent is the home of relig- 
ion and of art. But the people cower in their wooden 
huts, half starved, half frozen, and wolves snifi at them 
through the chinks in the walls. The convent prays and 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 281 

the castle sings ; the cottage hungers and groans and 
dies."* 

Enterprise was the slave of superstition and ignorance. 
Some monks in Germany desired to erect a corn -mill, 
but a neighboring lord objected, declaring that the wind 
belonged to him. The useful arts were unknown and un- 
studied except by the monks, and their practice of them 
was confined chiefly to fashioning utensils for the use 
of the altar. Mankind lay in a state of intellectual and 
moral paralysis. Feudalism emasculated human energy. 
One art only flourished — the art of war. The pursuit of 
any of the useful arts, beyond that of agriculture, by the 
serfs, was impracticable, since sufiicient time could not be 
spared from feudal strife for the proper tillage of the 
soil. The vassal was always subject to summary call to 
arms. If in the spring the noble wished to fight, the 
fields remained unplanted; if he wished to fight in the 
fall, the harvest remained ungathered. The serf, there- 
fore, led a precarious life. If he escaped death in battle, 
he was still quite likely to die of starvation. In the fer- 
tile plains of Lombardy, in the first half of the thirteenth 
century, there were ^ve famines ! 

J^othing happens without due cause. The misfort- 
unes suffered by the people of Europe during the Mid- 
dle Ages did not fall upon them from the clouds. The 
moral darkness which veiled the face of justice, and the 
intellectual stuj)or which prevented scientific and art 
researches, are not inexplicable mysteries. The vices j 
the cruelties, the poverty, and the pitiable supersti- 
tions of that time were the product of a false phi- 

* " The Martyrdom of Man." By Winwood Reade. New York : 
Charles P. Somerby, 1876. 



282 MIND AND HAND. 

losophy, an odious social caste, and a state of general 
ignorance. 

It happens that for hundreds of years of this period 
of wretchedness and crime there was in the heart of 
Europe an industrious, cultured, prosperous, and happy 
people. Their religion forbade the taking of usurious 
interest under terrible moral penalties ; it also forbade 
" all distinctions of caste," and enjoined full social equal- 
ity. They were the friends of education. " To every 
mosque was attached a public school, in which the chil- 
dren of the poor were taught to read and write." They 
established libraries in their chief cities, and were the 
patrons of the sciences and of the useful arts in all their 
forms. In a word, to the general prevalence of super- 
stition and ignorance in Europe the Moors in Spain con- 
stituted a glowing exception. 

Wherever the Saracen went he carried science and art. 
He honored labor, and genius and learning followed in 
his footsteps. Taught by learned Jews, he studied the 
works of the ancient philosophers, and preserved and ex- 
tended their knowledge of astronomy, chemistry, alge- 
bra, and geography. Cordova was the abode of wealth, 
learning, refinement, and the arts. Its mosques and pal- 
aces were models of architectural splendor, and its indus- 
tries employed 200,000 families. Seville contained 16,000 
silk-looms, and employed 130,000 weavers. The banks 
of the Guadalquivir were thickly studded with those 
gems of free labor, manufacturing villages. The dyeing 
of silk and wool fabrics was carried to great perfection, 
and the Moorish metal - workers were the most expert 
of the time. The Saracen invented cotton paper, intro- 
duced into Spain cotton and leather manufactures, and 
promoted the cultivation of sugar-cane, rice, and the mul- 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PKOBLEM. 283 

berry. !N'or did he neglect agriculture in any of its 
branches ; he created a new era in husbandry. His king- 
dom in Spain was the richest and most prosperous in the 
Western world ; indeed, its prosperity was in striking 
contrast with the poverty and misery of the peoples by 
whom it was surrounded. Under the third caliph its 
revenue reached £6,000,000 sterling, a sum, as Gibbon 
remarks, which in the tenth century probably surpassed 
the united revenues of all the Christian monarchs. But 
these industrious, cultured people were the descendants 
of invaders, and the Spaniards, under the influence of a 
blind and unreasoning impulse of religious and patriotic 
zeal, drove them from the soil they had literally made to 
" blossom like the rose," and themselves relapsed into a 
state of indolence, ignorance, and poverty. 

From the effects of the persecution of a race of artif- 
icers, and the proscription of the useful arts, Spain has 
never recovered. She has since always been, and is to- 
day, a striking exemplifi.cation of the verity of the prop- 
osition that stagnation in the useful arts is the death of 
civilization. In the last half of the seventeenth century 
the people of Madrid were threatened with starvation. 
To avert the impending calamity the adjacent country 
was scoured by the military, and the inhabitants com- 
pelled to yield supplies. There was danger that the 
Royal family would go hungry to bed. The tax-gath- 
erer sold houses and furniture, and the inhabitants were 
forced to fly ; the fields were left uncultivated, and mul- 
titudes died from want and exposure. During the sev- 
enteenth century Madrid lost half its population ; the 
looms of Seville were silenced ; the woollen manufact- 
ures of Toledo were transferred by the exiled Moriscoes 
to Tunis ; Castile, Segovia, and Burgos lost their manu- 



284 MIND AND HAND. 

factures, and their inhabitants were reduced to poverty 
and despair.* 

Two leading causes contributed to reduce the people 
of Europe during the Middle Ages to a state of moral 
obliquity, intellectual torpor, and physical incapacity — 
the repressive force of authority and the atrocious phi- 
losophy of contempt of man formulated by Machiavelli. 
The one forbade scientific investigation, the other stran- 
gled the spirit of invention in the grip of enforced igno- 
rance. Authority chilled courage, and contempt withered 
hope. Italy governed the world, and her rule consisted 
of a menace and a sneer. Under this regime of cruelty 
and cynicism man shrunk into a state of moral cowardic-e 
and intellectual lethargy. 

The political maxims which bear the name of Machia- 
velli were not invented by him. When he formulated 
them, in 1513, they had been in force in Italy a thousand 
years. These maxims explain the fact of the existence 
of a period of the world's history known as " the Dark 
Ages." The chief of them divides the human race into 
three classes, the members of the first of which under- 
stand things by their own natural powers ; the second 
when they are explained to them ; the third not at all. 
The third class embraces a vast majority of men ; the 
second only a small number ; the first a very small num- 
ber. The first class is to rule both the other classes, the 
second by craft and duplicity, the third by authority, 
and, that failing, by force. Other maxims assume the 
despicable character of all men, and justify falsehood, 

* "The Intellectual Development of Europe," Vol. 11., Chap. II. 
By John William Draper, M.D., LL.D. New York: Harper & 
Brothers; ".History of Civilization in England," Vol. II., Chap. I. 
By Henry Thomas Buckle. New York : D. Appleton & Co., 1864 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PEOBLEM. 285 

duplicity, cruelty, and murder, in the ruling class. A 
single proposition shows the infamy of the whole system, 
namely, " There are three ways of deciding any contest 
— by fraud, by force, or by law, and a wise man will 
make the most suitable choice."* These are maxims not 
of civilization but of barbarism. They involve a state 
of slavery, and where slavery exists the useful arts de- 
cline, and ultimately perish. And so it was in the Mid- 
dle Ages. 

Several great events led to the emancipation of the 
people of Europe from the joint reign of authority and 
contempt. The learning of the Jews and Saracens — 
their knowledge of the arts and sciences — gradually 
spread, and occupied the minds of cloistered students, 
giving to them an intellectual impulse. The Crusades, 
pitiful and prolific of horrors as they were, shed a great 
light upon Europe. They brought the men of the West 
face to face with a practical progressive civilization — a 
civilization that " filled the earth with prodigies of hu- 
man skill." The Crusaders were told that they would 
be led against hordes of barbarians. What astonishment 
must have seized them when they stood under the walls 
of Constantinople and beheld its splendors [ l^or was 
their surprise less, doubtless, in the character of the foe 
they encountered. They had expected to meet w^ith 
treachery and cruelty; they found chivalry, courtesy, 
and high culture.f 

These surprises and contrasts profoundly impressed 
the Crusaders, and they returned to Europe relieved of 

* "The Prince," Chap. XVIII. By Mccolo Machiavelli. 

f "The Intellectual Development of Europe," Vol. II., pp. 135, 
136. By John William Draper, M.D., LL.D. New York: Harper 
& Brothers. 



286 MIND AND HAND. 

many illusions, and notably of the fallacy that the wealth 
of Eastern princes was destined to supply the waste of 
their own squandered estates. They returned, too, to 
find a new civilization in process of development. Two 
hundred years of comparative freedom from the repres- 
sive force of feudalism changed the face of the country 
and the character of its people. During the absence of 
the nobles, in the Holy Land, a middle class sprung into 
existence, possessing the qualities which always distin- 
guish that class — thrift and prudence. The mortgaged 
estates of the Crusaders had fallen partly into their 
hands, and partly into the hands of the Crown. Towns 
had sprung up, and a commercial class and a manufact- 
uring class had been formed. The artisan became a fac- 
tor in the social problem. He offered his wares to the 
lords and ladies of the castles, and they bought them- 
selves poor. As Emerson says, " The banker with his 
seven per cent, drove the earl out of his castle." In the 
eleventh century nobility was above price, in the thir- 
teenth it was for sale, and soon afterwards it was offered 
as a gift. 

The invention of printing, the art preservative of all 
arts, removed the seal from the lips of learning. The 
desire to conceal is no match for the desire to print. 
Thenceforth, through the medium of types, the voice of 
genius was destined to reach to the ends of the earth ; 
and, more important still, every discovery in science, and 
every invention in art, became the sure heritage of future 
ages. 

The discovery of America was the crowning act of 
man's emancipation. In sweeping away the last vestige 
of the theory on which patristic geography was based, 
Columbus freed mankind. In the cry of " land ho !" 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 287 

witli whicli he greeted the new continent, he sounded 
the death-knell of intellectual slavery. His was the last 
act in a series of acts which struck off the shackles of 
thought, and let in upon the long night of the Middle 
Ages the clear light of day. Leonardo da Yinci took up 
the interrupted work of Archimedes, and the science of 
mechanics made rapid progress. At last it was correctly 
observed that " experiment is the only interpreter of nat- 
ure," and the development of natural philosophy began. 
Bruno was still to be burned, and Galileo imprisoned. 
But the persecutors of those great men were no longer 
moved by mere blind zeal. They believed and trembled, 
and in seeking to drown the truth in the blood of the 
votaries of science, they rendered it more conspicuous. 
By the light of the flames which consumed the body of 
the too daring philosopher a thousand scientists studied 
the stars, the earth, and the air. 

The invention of printing paralyzed authority, and the 
discovery of America gave wings to hope. A few manu- 
scripts could be locked in vaults or burned, but millions 
of books must inevitably, ultimately, find their way to 
the people. Books were, therefore, the sure promise of 
universal culture — the precursor of the common school. 
The discovery of another continent startled the people of 
Europe from the deep sleep of a thousand years, and sent 
a fresh current of blood surging through their veins. It 
seemed like a sort of new creation, and appealed power- 
fully to the imagination. And it is always the imagina- 
tion that " blazes " the path to glorious achievements. It 
is through the imagination that men are moved to "crave 
after the unseen," and through the imagination that the 
human mind becomes big with "bold and lofty concep- 
tions." A new world having been discovered by one man, 



288 MIND AND HAND. 

it was natural that all men should be put upon inquiry. 
Hence the era of investigation, the resulting discoveries 
of science, and their innumerable applications, through 
the useful arts, to the fast multiplying needs of man. 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PKOBLEM. 289 



CHAPTER XXIV. 
EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM— HISTORIC. 

EUROPE. 

The Standing Army a Legacy of Evil from the Middle Ages.— It is 
the Controlling Feature of the European Situation.— Its Collateral 
Evils: Wars and Debts.— The Debts of Europe Represent a Series 
of Colossal Crimes against the People ; with the Armies and Na- 
vies they Absorb the Bulk of the Annual Revenue.— The People 
Fleeing from them.— They Threaten Bankruptcy ; they Prevent 
Education.— Germany, the best-educated Nation in Europe, losing 
most by Emigration.— Her People will not Endure the Standing 
Army.— The Folly of the European International Policy of Hate. 
— It is Possible for Europe to Restore to Productive Employ- 
ments 8,000.000 of men, to place at the Disposal of her Educators 
$700,000,000, instead of $70,000,000 per annum, and to pay her 
National Debts in Fiftj^-four Years, simply by the Disbandment 
of her Armies and Navies.— The A'rmament of Europe Stands in 
the Way of Universal Education and of Universal Industrial Pros- 
perity. — Standing Armies the Last Analysis of Selfishness ; they 
are Coeval with the Revival during the Middle Ages of the Greco- 
Roman Subjective Methods of Education. — They must go out 
when the New Education comes in. 

The mediaeval period conferred upon man two great 
blessings — a new continent and the art of printing. It 
also left a legacy of evil. With the partition of Europe 
into great States the modern age began, and it began 
with this inheritance of evil from the Middle Ages — the 
standing army. 

The feudal lords wrecked their estates and sacrificed 
their lives during the Crusades, and a middle class arose 
and united with the kings in the government of the 



29,0 :_ . MIND AND HAND. 

State. But this alliance was of short duration ; it soon 
gave way to an alliance which proved to be enduring — 
an alliance between the aristocracy and the kings. 

By the ruin of feudalism thousands of serfs were set 
free. Trained to arms, it was easy to make soldiers of 
them. They were accordingly converted into merce- 
nary troops— mustered into the service of the new alli- 
ance as guards of the modern State. Thus the standing 
armies of the "great powers" originated. This legacy 
of evil has so increased in magnitude that it is, to-day, 
the dominant feature of European public economy, and 
the portentous fact of the social problem. 

The standing armies of Europe number two million five 
hundred thousand men, and their naval auxiliaries con- 
sist of three thousand vessels, thirty thousand guns, and 
two hundred thousand men. This is the mammoth evil 
bequeathed to Europe by the Middle Ages, and out of 
it many collateral evils have sprung, as wars, debts, and 
exorbitant tax levies.* 

Thirty years ago the national debts of the govern- 
ments of Europe had risen to $9,000,000,000. Since that 
time they have almost trebled ! The cause of this vast in- 
crease is easy to find. It consists chiefly of four great wars, 
namely, the Crimean war of 1854-56, the Franco-Sar- 
dinian war against Austria in 1859, the German-Italian 
war of 1866, and the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-Y2. 
These wars were waged to maintain what is termed the 
balance of power; they involved no principle affecting 
the rights of man. Whatever their issue, no gain could 
hence accrue to the people of Europe. And this is the 
nature of most of the wars in which the standing armies 
of Europe have been employed since their organization. 
But the European budget shows that they are the over- 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 291 

shadowing feature of the European governmental sys- 
tems. 

The annual revenue of the States of Europe is about 
$1,725,000,000. Of this sum $700,000,000 is devoted to 
the support of the standing armies and navies, and as 
much more is required to meet the interest charge on 
the debts created in the prosecution of wars waged to 
maintain the balance of power! Thus, of the aggregate 
of European revenue, the sum of $1,400,000,000 is de- 
voted to the purely supposititious theory that the sub- 
jects of the great powers are inflamed with an intense 
desire to cut one another's throats, w^hile the small sum 
of $325,000,000 is left for the support of the civil serv- 
ice, comprising all the strictly legitimate objects of gov- 
ernment, and including education ! 

The national debts of Europe represent a series of 
colossal crimes against the people. They were incurred 
in the prosecution of unnecessary wars, and for the sup- 
port of unnecessary standing armies. With relation to 
these debts the people are divided into two classes — one 
class owns them and the other class pays interest on 
them. This relationship comprehends future generations 
in perpetuity. Every child born in Europe inherits 
either an estate in these -debts or an obligation to con- 
tribute towards the payment of the interest upon them. 
Thus the fruits of a great crime have been transmuted 
into a vested right in one class of people, and into a 
vested wrong in another class."^ 

* "For instance, I have seven thousand pounds in what we call 
the Funds or Founded things ; but I am not comfortable about the 
founding of them. All that I can see of them is a square bit of 
paper, with some, ugly printing on it, and all that I know of them is 
that this bit of paper gives me the right to tax you every year, and 



292 MIND AND HAND. 

If the European standing armies and navies had not 
been raised and kept up, and if the revenue devoted to 
their support had been expended for schools, there would 
not now be an uneducated person in Europe. If these 
standing armies and navies w^ere now disbanded, and the 
revenue at present expended for their support diverted 
to the support of schools, and so applied continuously 
for half a century, there would not be, at the end of that 
period, an illiterate person in Europe. 

Under existing conditions the debts of the European 
nations cannot be paid. But vast as the sum of them is, 
their payment is not only possible, but practicable in a 
very short time. Disband the standing armies and navies, 
and continue the present rate of taxation, and there would 
be an annual surplus revenue of $700,000,000. Apply 
this sum, together with the surplus of the interest appro- 
priation, accruing through the resulting yearly decrease 
of the interest charge, to the liquidation of these debts, 
and they would be extinguished in about twenty years. ^ 
But if the period during which provision is made for 
the extinguishment of these debts be extended to fifty- 
four years, and, meantime, the present rate of taxation be 
maintained, there would be released and rendered avail- 
make you pay me two hundred pounds out of your wages; which is 
very pleasant for me ; but how long will you be pleased to do so ? 
Suppose it should occur to you, any surnmer's day, that you had bet- 
ter not ? Where would my seven thousand pounds be ? In fact, 
where are they now ? We call ourselves a rich people ; but you see 
this seven thousand pounds of mine has no real existence — it only 
means that you, the workers, are poorer by two hundred pounds a 
year than you would be if 1 hadn't got it. And this is surely a very 
odd kind of money for a country to boast of." — " Fors Clavigera," 
Part I., p. 67. By John Ruskin, LL.D. New York: John Wiley 
& Sons, 1880. 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PKOBLEM. 293 

able for educational purposes, annually, the sum of 
$600,000,000. 

What is tlie purpose, it may be inquired, of these cal- 
culations? Their purpose is to show what the armies 
and navies of Europe cost, and what they stand in the 
way of. They cost so much that not a dollar of the 
national debts of Europe can be paid while they con- 
tinue to exist. They cost so much that the people who 
are taxed to support them are fleeing from them as from 
a scourge. They cost so much that the decline of the 
nations which support them has already begun, and this 
decline can be arrested only by their disbandment. 

That the nations of EurojDe are declining is shown by 
the statistics of emigration. The foundation of national 
prosperity is manual labor. There must be a solid basis 
of industrial growth for the superstructm'e of elegance, 
refinement, luxury, and culture. Manual labor is as es- 
sential to triumphs in literature, mnsic, and the fine arts 
as the foundations of the Brooklyn Bridge, bnried in the 
earth, are to the beautiful arch which spans the great 
river. And in the strife for supremacy between the 
nations of the world the maintenance of these triumphs 
depends, also, npon manual labor.* The real flower of a 



* " Now, therefore, see briefly what it all comes to. First, you 
spend eighty millions of money in fireworks [war], doing no eud of 
damage in letting them off. 

"Then you borrow money to pay the firework-maker's bill, from 
any gain-loving persons who have got it. 

"And then, dressing your bailiff's men in new red coats and cocked 
hats, you send them drumming and trumpeting into the fields, to 
take the peasants by the throat, and make them pay the interest on 
what you have borrowed, and the expense of the cocked hats besides. 

"That is 'financiering,' my friends, as the mob of the money- 
makers understand it. And they understand it well. For that is 



294 MIND AND flAND. 

population is, therefore, its labor class. All other classes 
depend upon it, and all national triumphs spring from it. 
Hence a drain npon the labor class of a nation is a drain 
upon its most vital resource. The nation that suffers 
such a drain continuously is in its decadence. It loses 
some of its vigor, some of its productive power, and the 
loss is not supplied. True, the poor emigrant takes with 
him no part of the splendors of the country he leaves, 
but his brawny arm and skilled hand have contributed to 
the support of national pomp and social elegance, and as 
he steps aboard the steamer he withdraws that support 
forever. 

Napoleon the Infamous plundered the conquered cap- 
itals of Europe to beautify and enrich the art treasuries 
of Paris. The art treasures of Europe are destined to 
cross the ocean, in the track of the column of emigration, 
if the flower of her labor class continues to flee from her 
standing armies and navies, as the statues of Rome 
followed the army of the modern Csesar. For where 
the flower of the world's labor class gathers, there 
wealth most abounds. Labor, not gold and silver, is 
the source of wealth, hence it is to the laborer that art 
triumphs are due, and this is the order of their devel- 
opment. The laborer provides for immediate, pressing 
wants; he is prudent, and accumulates a surplus; he 
hungers for education ; he develops a love of the beauti- 



wliat it always comes to, finally — taking the peasant by the throat. 
He must pay — for he only can. Food can only be got out of the 
ground, and all these devices of soldiership, and law, and arithmetic, 
are but ways of getting at last down to him, the furrow-driver, and 
snatching the roots from him as he digs." — " Fors Clavigera," Part 
II., p. 27. By John Ruskin, LL.D. New York: John Wiley & 
-Sons, 1882. 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 295 

fill ; he seeks to dignify liis life and adorn his home ; he 
patronizes art ; he draws to himself the art treasures of 
the world. 

The standing armies and navies of Europe have cost 
the European laborer the sacrifice of all these pleasing 
and noble aspirations.^ Beyond the point of providing 
for " immediate pressing wants " he has not been able 
to pass. His surplus goes to the tax-gatherer, to feed 
and clothe the army and the navy. His desire for edu- 
cation, his love of the beautiful, his hope of a digni- 
fied life, and of a home adorned by art — these all are 
dreams, illusions, which vanish into thin air in the pres- 
ence of the substantial fact of the annual European bud- 
get — for the support of the standing armies and navies 
$700,000,000 ! 

In the way of the payment of the national debts of 
Europe her standing armies and navies rear themselves 
like an impassable wall. Against any general education- 
al system they have hitherto constituted an insurmounta- 
ble barrier ; and in the future, as in the past, their main- 
tenance dooms the masses to illiteracy. They stand in 
the way especially of the incorporation, in the curricu- 
lum of the public schools, of the manual element in edu- 
cation, because it is the most expensive, as it is the most 
important part of instruction. 

Germany affords an admirable example of the power 
of education, even though defective in character, and of 
the disgust with which standing armies inspire an intel- 
ligent people. The Germans are the best-educated peo- 
ple in Europe. The educational system of Germany was 
established by Prussia as a politico - economic measure 
after the humiliation of the German States by Bona- 
parte. Said Frederick William, " Though territory, pow- 



396 MIND AND HAND. 

er, and prestige be lost, tliej can be regained by ac- 
quiring intellectual and moral power." The outcome 
of the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 verified the truth 
of this prediction. Her freedom from debt enabled 
Prussia to inaugurate and carry forward a comprehen- 
sive educational system, which in turn enabled her not 
only to vanquish her ancient enemy, but to make France 
pay the cost of her own humiliation. Thus at a single 
stroke Prussia avenged the defeats suffered at the hands 
of the first Napoleon, and permanently w^eakened France 
by compelling her vastly to increase her national debt. 

The alacrity with which the French people subscribed 
for the new bonds was much remarked upon, at the time, 
as evincing both financial soundness and patriotism. But 
the really grave feature of the situation — the vast aug- 
mentation of the public burdens of France — was scarcely 
mentioned, and was, perhaps, philosophically considered 
only by that astute statesman, Prince Bismarck. The 
war with Germany cost France $2,000,000,000, and com- 
pelled an enormous increase of taxation. The debt state- 
ment for 1877 was $4,635,000,000 — the expenditures 
$533,000,000 ; and of this latter sum $373,000,000 were 
absorbed by the army, the navy, and the national debt ! 

The significant feature of the European situation is 
the freedom from debt of Germany. It is by virtue of 
this fact that she holds the first place in Europe. Her 
rate of taxation is as low as that of little Switzerland. 
All the other Great Powers are hampered by great debts. 
Spain is bankruj^t ; she does not pay the interest on her 
debt. Austria increases her debt every year ; she is prac- 
tically bankrupt. It is only a question of time, if stand- 
ing armies and navies continue to be maintained and 
wars to occur, when all the debtor nations will be re- 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 297 

duced to bankrnptcy.* The nation sinks as the column 
of debt rises. France cannot double lier debt again and 
make her people paj interest on it. England draws 
from her citizens a larger j)er capita revenue than any 
other nation of Europe, except France, and slie lias 
nearly touched the limit of their capacity to pay taxes. 
A sudden and considerable increase of her debt would 
strain the Government, and might shatter it. 

Thus, the more searching the analysis of the Euro- 
pean situation, the more clear does the exceptional 
strength of Germany appear. But out of her abundant 
strength a weakness has been evolved. The system of 
education that rendered the Germans so powerful against 
France as soldiers, has made them thoughtful citizens. 
It has revolutionized the public sentiment of Germany 
on the subject of government. In the place of passion 
it has substituted reason. The Prussian "subject" for 
whom the king thought, has become a German citizen 
who thinks for himself, and one of his earliest reflec- 
tions is that, in modern civilization, a standing army is a 
solecism. The ignorant Prussian hated the French be- 
cause hatred of them was enjoined upon him as the cor- 
relative of the duty of blind devotion to his king. But 
the educated German knows that the sole motive of the 
continuance of the standing army is the maintenance of 
the balance of power, which is merely a tacit agree- 
ment between the European rulers, by divine right, to 
perpetuate their own lease of power. Hence the "in- 



* ' ' The progress of the enormous debts which at present oppress, 
and will in the long run probably ruin,' all the great Nations of Eu- 
rope, has been pretty uniform." — " Wealth of Nations," Yol. III., p. 
392. By Adam Smith, LL.D., F.R.S. Edinburgh, 1819, 



298 MIND AND HAND. 

tellectnal and moral power " conferred upon the German 
people, by education, reacts upon Germany in the form 
of a drain of the flower of her population by emigra- 
tion. 

The citizenship of Germany is more valuable, in an 
economic sense, than that of any other country of Eu- 
rope — more valuable because Germany is the most pow- 
erful nation of the European family of States; more 
valuable because of them all she alone is free from debt ; 
more valuable by reason of her more moderate scale of 
taxation. Bat she still furnishes the heaviest contingent 
to the column of emigration steadily moving towards 
the United States. In a word, the most valuable citi- 
zenship in Europe — that of Germany — is least regarded 
and most freely surrendered. Why ? Because the Ger- 
mans are the best- educated people in Europe. Poor as 
the German primary school system is, it is universal, and 
it has destroyed what it was founded chiefly to promote 
and perpetuate, namely, reverence for, and loyalty to, 
government by Divine right. German intelligence re- 
volts from taxation for the support of a standing army. 
It revolts from the theory and policy of hate upon which 
standing armies are based. It comprehends perfectly 
that the standing army is a menace to the freedom 
of the citizen, at home, rather than a defence against 
pretended danger from abroad. It scorns, as absurd, 
the threadbare assumption that Englishmen, Frenchmen, 
Italians, Russians, and Germans desire to fly at one an- 
other's throats, and that they can be restrained only by 
a cordon of bayonets.* It realizes that the perpetuation 
of the era of hate, through the standing army, retards 
the mental and physical progress of the human race, 
which would be greatly promoted by the free intermin- 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 299 

gling of the various nationalities of Europe.* That it is 
from the standing army that the emigrant flees is shown 
by the records of the military department of the Ger- 
man government. 

In the year 1883 twenty-nine thousand men were ar- 
rested for attempting to emigrate from Germany to avoid 
the required military service, and more than a hundred 
thousand others, from whom service was due, refused, 
both to report for duty, and to furnish the required ex- 
cuses for the failure to enroll themselves. 

The law of Germany requires every male citizen, capa- 
ble of bearing arms, to serve three years in the standing 
army — to devote three of the best years of his life to the 
preservation of the balance of power in Europe ! In ad- 
dition, he must serve four years in the reserve, and five 
years in the landw^ehr. And this service is regarded as 
a debt due the government. Every male child born in 
Germany contracts this debt, in contemplation of law, in 
the act of drawing his first breath, and nothing but death 
releases him from the obligation. Having been taught 
in the emperor's schools to love the emperor, when he 
reaches the military age, a musket is placed in his hands, 

* The multiplicity of languages is due to the policy of interna- 
tional hate, inaugurated by the nations of Europe to promote the 
selfish purposes of rulers. Barbarism is diversity; civilization is 
unity. The human race is one, provided it is civilized, and it should 
have but one language. Language is a tool, and time consumed in 
acquiring skill in the use of more than one tool designed for the 
same end, is wasted. The standing armies of Europe obstruct the 
way to unity of language. The time will come when all civilized 
peoples will speak one tongue, probably the English, Then language 
will cease to be a mere vain accomplishment, and become what it 
ought always to have been, the simple means of familiarizing the 
mind with things, and of the communication of knowledge. 



300 MIND AND HAND. 

and he is taught to shoot the emperor's enemies. If he 
refuses to enter the army lie is- fined ; if he refuses to 
pay the fine he is imjDrisoned. 

The German emperor attributes the decline in the 
military organization to the negligence of his military 
staff, but its true cause is the German educational sys- 
tem. The steady augmentation of the rolls of military 
delinquents is the measure of the growth of German in- 
telligence. The ease with which Germany conquered 
France flattered the vanity of the educated German, but 
it did not prevent him from emigrating to America. To 
the cultured mind the army that wins the contest in 
which no principle is involved is as odious as the army 
that loses. To the cultured mind all standing armies are 
odious, because they are an embodied assumption of the 
barbarism of man, and a denial of the efiicacy of reason. 
The great stream of German emigration attests the su- 
periority of German culture. The educated German de- 
clines to learn the art of shooting the emperor's enemies, 
but he knows that Germany is, in fact, governed by its 
standing army — by muskets — and he quits the country. 

Thus the chief power of Germany becomes her chief 
weakness. A system of education which has made her 
the first nation in Europe produces w^ide-spread discon- 
tent among her people, because she is governed by obso- 
lete ideas, x^or can the loss in virile force suffered by 
Germany, through emigration, be made good by a counter 
movement of immigrants from the less favored countries 
of Europe. The economic condition of Germany — her 
freedom from debt and her comparatively low rate of 
taxation — invite such a movement. But the European 
policy of international hate, created and perpetuated by 
standing armies, forbids Germany to recoup her losses of 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 301 

men to America, through correspotiding gains of men 
from the overtaxed populations of neighboring coun- 
tries. The grinning skeletons of a hundred battles in 
which the rival nationalities of Europe have been pitted 
against one another, rise to challenge the social inter- 
mingling of peoples separated for centnries by the arts 
of diplomacy, traditions of blood and flames, and the ser- 
ried ranks of standing armies. 

The disjDOsition of Germans to emigrate irritates the 
emperor and his prime-njinister. The loss of numbers 
might be borne, for notwithstanding the steady outward 
flow of emigrants there is a slight increase of popula- 
tion in Germany. But it is the quality of the exodus 
that annoys the emperor and his chancellor. The Ger- 
man emigrants are strong men and women — strong men- 
tally and physically. All the weaklings, all the paujjers, 
all the imbeciles, the aged, and the infirm remain, only 
the young and vigorous go. Those who go have been 
taught at the expense of the State to love the emperor 
and hate his enemies, but they do neither. The German 
system of education, from the point of view^ of ru lei's by 
divine right, is, hence, a conspicuous failure. It makes 
better men but poorer subjects. The more thoroughly 
the man is educated the more valuable he is to himself 
and to the community, but the less valuable to his king. 
His growth in intelligence is the measure of his decline 
in reverence for rulers by divine right, and the standing 
armies by wdiich they are alone supported. This is the 
cause of German emigration, and its effect is to weaken 
the German Empire. Germany is not so strong as she 
was when her armies swept over France ; she declines in 
powder each year, through the loss of men — the sole sup- 
port of a State." They flee from her standing army to 



302 MIND AND HAND. 

the United States, a republic with only a handful of sol- 
diers. 

The system of education established to increase the 
power of Prussia in Europe has accomplished its pur- 
pose. But it has done much more — something never 
thought of by its founders. It has produced a wide- 
spread feeling of intelligent discontent ; and discontent 
is an inarticulate cry for reform. The cultured German 
scorns the standing army, refuses to serve in it, protests 
against its longer existence, and demands more and bet- 
ter education for his children. His protest is unheeded, 
and he quits the country. But the demand for higher 
education is not, cannot be, disregarded. Intelligence is 
contagious; it infects with a thirst for knowledge all 
with whom it comes in contact. Education is the arch- 
revolutionist whose onward march is irresistible. Soon 
a riper culture will make the German Protestants more 
courageous and more imperative in their demands, and 
they will remain in the country to enforce them. Edu- 
cation made Germany the first military power in Europe ; 
but education could not have been put to a more ignoble 
service. The desire of intelligent Germans is that Ger- 
many shall become the first industrial power in Europe, 
and this desire can be realized by the disbandment of her 
standing army. 

This review of the situation in Europe shows that it is 
practicable for her to restore, at once, to productive em- 
ployments three millions of men — the flower of her 
population — now not only idle, but a public charge. It 
shows, also, that it is practicable for Europe to place, at 
once, at the disposal of her educators $700,000,000 per 
annum instead of $70,000,000 per annum, as at present. 
The corollary of these tv^^e propositions is a third, name- 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 303 

ly, that it is practicable for Europe to extinguish her 
national debts in fifty-four years. It follows that the 
regular armies of Europe alone stand in the way of 
universal education, and of universal industrial pros- 
perity. 

Standing armies everywhere within the lines of ad- 
vanced civilization must soon disappear before the march 
of education."^ Social questions cannot much longer be 
settled by emigration. The world's virgin soil is being 
rapidly appropriated. When the surface of the whole 
earth shall have become occupied, barbarisms of every 
nature will be intolerable. Man must then be highly 
civilized, and the only highly civilizing influence is edu- 
cation. The age of force, is passing away ; the age of 
science and art — the age of industrial development — has 
begun, and standing armies are as abnormal in Europe 

* "This nation to-day is in profourd peace with the world; but 
in my judgment it has before it a great duty, which will not only 
make that profound peace permanent, but shall set such an example 
as will absolutely abolish war on this continent, and by a great ex- 
ample and a lofty moral precedent shall ultimately abolish it in other 
continents. I am justified in saying that every one of the seventeen 
independent Powers of North and South America is not only willing 
but ready — is not only ready but eager — to enter into a solemn com- 
pact in a congress that may be called in the name of peace, to agree 
that if, unhappily, differences shall arise — as differences will arise 
between men and nations— they shall be settled upon the peaceful 
and Christian basis of arbitration. 

"And, as I have often said before, I am glad to repeat, in this great 
centre of civilization and power, that in my judgment no national 
spectacle, no international spectacle, no continental spectacle, could 
be more grand than that the republics of the Western world should 
meet together and solemnly agree that neither the soil of North nor 
that of South America shall be hereafter stained by brothers' blood." 
— Extract from the Speech of Hon. James G. Blaine at the Delmonico 
Dinner, October 29, 1884. 



304 MIND AND HAND. 

now as slavery was in tlie United States twenty-five years 
ago.* 

Standing armies are the instruments of tyranny ; they 
are the last analysis of selfishness, the incarnation of de- 
pravity; for they do not reason — they strike. It is 
worthy of note that the standing armies of Em^ope are 
coeval with the revival of learning, and the revival of 
learning was a revival of the Greco-Roman subjective 
educational methods. The logical effect of those meth- 
ods was the promotion of selfishness, and the standing 
armies conserved the selfish designs of the rulers of the 
newly-formed States. It is hence not a mere coincidence 
that standing armies and the revival of learning through 
subjective processes of thougjit are of common origin. 
The Machiavellian philosophy of cruelty, duplicity, and 
contempt of man sprung logically from egoism, and as 
logically led to the formation of standing armies — bodies 
of armed men, trained, under compulsion, to kill, burn, 
and destroy. 

The synonyms of the standing army are selfishness 
and its vile issue, feudalism, serfdom, slavery, ignorance, 
and contempt of man. These conditions are passing 
away, and the standing army, the worst, as it is the most 
costly relic of savagery, must pass away with them. It 
cannot withstand the advance of the new education, 
whose mission is peace, whose quest is the truth, whose 
premise is a fact, whose conclusion is a thing of use and 
beauty, and whose goal is justice. 

* "It is only slowly, and after having been long in contact with 
society, that man becomes more indulgent towards others and more 
severe towards himself." — " Suicide: an Essay on Comparative Moral 
Statistics," p. 226. By Henry Morselli, M.D. New York: D. Ap- 
pleton& Co., 1882. 



EDUCATION ANi) THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 305 

1 War is not merely a relic of barbarism; it is barbarism triumph- 
ant. It is evidence of the presence, active and malignant, of all the 
bad passions of man. Nor are idle armies less infamous than armies 
in deadly conflict. Carlyle well says that the one monster in Ihe 
world is tiie idle man; and the standing army is a vast horde of idle 
men quartered on the community. The standing armies of Europe, 
on parade, in barracks, and in forts, are as unmixed an evil as the 
legions of Rome were in Gaul, in Greece, or before Carthage. It is 
a shame to civilization that arbitration did not long ago take the 
place of the coarse brutality of war. The duello between Nations 
is not less absurd, and it is a thousand-fold more wicked, than the 
duello between individuals. It is savagery pure and simple, the 
child of selfishness, and not less inconsistent with a high stale of civ- 
ilization than slavery. 

2 Of the British funding system when it was in its infancy, as early 
as 1748, Lord Bolingbroke said: " It is a method by which one part 
of the nation is pawned to the other, with hardly any hope left of 
ever being redeemed." 

See, also, in the North Americaji Review for September, 1886, an 
exhaustive article on the impolicy of national debt perpetuation, by 
N. P. Hill, in which it is alleged that "great interests are at work to 
prevent the payment of the national debt of the United States." 

^ In his recent great work — "The Wonderful Century" — Mr. Al- 
fred Russel Wallace, on the authority of "Tiie Statesman's Year 
Book " for 1897, states that the standing armies and navies of Europe 
number three millions of men; cost 180,000,000 pounds sterling per 
annum, and withdraw from useful employments ten millions of men 
engaged in repairing the waste of war. — " The Wonderful Century," 
pp. 335-336. New York : Dodd, Mead & Co., 1898. 

* " I know now that my fellowship with others cannot be shut off by 
a frontier, or by a government decree which decides that I belong to 
some particular political organization. I know now that all men are 
everywhere brothers and equals. When I think now of all the evil I 
have done, that I have endured, and that I have seen about me, arising 
from national enmities, I see clearly that it is all due to that gross 
imposture called patriotism — love for one's native land." . . . 
" I understand now that true welfare is possible for me only on con- 
dition that I recognize my fellowship with the whole world." — "My 
Keligion," p. 256. By Count Leo Tolstoi. New York : Thomas Y. 
Crowell & Co. 

5 There is another cause of the decline of Germany: War degrades ; 



306 MIND AND HAND. 

it is a reversion toward barbarism. Not only is the soldier brutalized 
by martial exercises and scenes of carnage, but the moral and mental 
fibre of the people of a nation which indulges in war is rendered 
coarser. The remark of M. Renan on the subject is profoundly 
pliilosophical : 

"The man who has passed years in the carriage of arms after the 
German fashion is dead to all delicate work whether of the hand or 
brain."— "Recollections of my Youth," p. 159. By Ernest Renan. 
New York : G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1883. 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PKOBLEM. 30^ 



CHAPTER XXV. 
EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM— HISTORIC. 

AMERICA. 

An Old Civilization in a New Country. — Old Methods in a New Sys- 
tem of Schools. — Sordid Views of Education. — The highest Aim 
Money-getting. —Herbert Spencer on the English Schools.— Same 
Defects in the American Schools. — Maxims of Selfishness. — The 
Cultivation of Avarice. — Political Incongruities. — Negroes escap- 
ing from Slavery called Fugitives from Justice. — The Results of 
Subjective Educational Processes.— Climatic Influences alone saved 
America from becoming a Slave Empire. — Illiteracy. — Abnormal 
Growth of Cities.— Failure of Justice. — Defects of Education shown 
in Reckless and Corrupt Legislation. — Waste of an Empire of Pub- 
lic Land.— Henry D. Lloyd's History of Congressional Land Grants. 
— The Growth and Power of Corporations. — The Origin of large 
Fortunes, Speculations. — Old Social Forces producing old Social 
Evils. — Still America is the Hope of the World. — The Right of 
Suffrage in the United States justifies the Sentiment of Patriotism. 
— Let Suffrage be made Intelligent and Virtuous, and all Social 
Evils will yield to it; and all the Wealth of the Country is subject 
to the Draft of the Ballot for Education. — The Hope of Social Re- 
form depends upon a complete Educational Revolution. 

The discovery of America startled Europe. It was a 
great blow to prevailing dogmatisms. It upset many 
learned (?) theories. It swept away patristic geography. 
It completed the figure of the earth, rendering it sus- 
ceptible of intelligent study. The advantages of such 
investigation accrued to man, to a degree, before the so- 
cial and civil life of America began. In the century and 
a quarter which elapsed between the landing of Colum- 
bus and that of the Pilgrims, on these shores, considera- 



308 MIND AND HAND. 

ble social and political progress was made in Europe, 
and especially in England. From tlie turbulent scenes of 
the reigns of James I. and Charles I., which eventnated 
in the Cromwellian rebellion and victory of the Com- 
mons, the Pilgrims escaped. They not only bore with 
them, to the new continent, the impress of the long 
struggle for liberty waged by the English people, but 
they were, in a certain sense, the product of the progress 
of all the ages. But they constituted only a small part 
of the column of immigrants. Detachments of the Cav- 
aliers came also, and Germans, Frenchmen, and Irishmen 
came with them. 

The discovery of America was a sort of new creation,* 
but its almost virgin soil w^as destined to become the 
home of an old civilization. From all the nationalities of 
the Old World the E"ew World w^as to be peopled. The 
ambitious, the restless, the adventurous, the enterprising, 
and the hardy of every tongue, w^ere gradually to assem- 
ble in the new field of action. The manner in which 
they treated the natives of the new country, both north 
and south, showed their origin and their training. Their 
determination to conquer and hold the new territory was 
but thinly disguised. Their descent upon the Atlantic 
coast was not the exact counterpart of that of Csesar upon 
the coast of Britain, but it was the same in spirit ; and 
the active trade in slaves which soon sprang up, and 
which was thereafter vigorously prosecuted for two hun- 
dred years, showed the taint of savagery — the impress of 
Roman cruelty, rapacity, and injustice. 

* " The discovery of America is the greatest event which has ever 
taken place in this world of ours, one half of which had hitherto 
been unknown to the other. Ail that until now appeared extraordi- 
nary seems to disappear before this sort of new creation."— Voltaire. 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 309 

It is evident that in its most important feature — the 
formation of character — education had made little if any 
progress at the time of the organization of civil society 
in America. The democratic idea was not new. It found 
expression in every form during the struggles of Greece 
and Rome, and the revival of learning had led to the 
discussion of governmental questions in the light of his- 
tory. Besides, the reformation of Luther had opened 
the way to the last analysis of dissent in the person of 
Roger Williams, who asserted the right of absolute free- 
dom of thought and speech. Of the religious right of 
private judgment the political right of an equal voice in 
public affairs is the corollary. Hence, that the Puritans 
should establish the town organizations so justly lauded 
by M. Tocqueville was quite logical* Nor was the 
public-school system less logical ; all citizens being mem- 
bers of the government, all children must be prepared 
for the duties of citizenship. But unfortunately the old 
system of education was put into the new schools, as the 
old civilizations had been transferred to the new country. 
The system of education under which the kings and rul- 
ing classes of England and of the continent of Europe 
w^ere trained to 'selfishness, cruelty, and injustice, w^as 
heedlessly adopted in the schools of 'New England, which 
became the models of schools throughout the country. 



* "Town meetings are to liberty what primary schools are to 
science; they bring it within the people's reach, they teach men how 
to use and how to enjoy it. . . . The township institutions of New 
England form a complete and regular whole; they are old; they have 
the support of the laws, and the still stronger support of the manners 
of the community, over which they exercise a prodigious influence." 
—"Democracy in America," Vol. I., p. 76. By Alexis De Tocque- 
ville. Boston : John Allyn, 1876. 



310 MIND AND HAND. 

The popular idea in regard to the schools was (1) that 
thej fitted their pupils for the duties of citizenship, or, 
more properly, for the art of governing, and (2) that 
they taught the art of getting on in the world ; and get- 
ting on in the world was interpreted to mean getting and 
keeping money. That this sordid view of education was 
generally held in the rural districts of New England is 
shown by the fact that any culture beyond a limited and 
imperfect knowledge of reading, writing, and arithmetic 
was regarded as superfluous. ISTot even the rudiments of 
either the sciences or the arts were imparted, and yet it 
is only through a knowledge of the sciences and the arts 
that progress in civilization is made. The early settlers 
of New England devised a new system of schools, but 
they imported into them an old system of education, the 
Greco-Roman subjective system, introduced into Eng- 
land with the revival of learning. Of this system Mr. 
Herbert Spencer says, " Had there been no teaching but 
such as is given in our public schools, England would 
now be what it was in feudal times." And he adds : 

"The vital knowledge, that by which we have grown 
as a nation to what we are, and which now underlies our 
whole existence, is a knowledge that has got itself taught in 
nooks and corners, while the ordained agencies for teach- 
ing have been mumbling little else but dead formulas."* 

But these are merely negative effects of subjective 
methods of education. The positive evil effect of them 

* "That which our school courses leave almost entirely out, we 
thus find to be that which most nearly concerns the business of life. 
All our industries would cease were it not for that information which 
men begin to acquire as they best may after their education is said 
to be finished."— "Education," p. 54. By Herbert Spencer. New 
York: D. xVppleton & Co., 1883. 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 311 

is selfishness, the sum of all' villanies. Under the new 
system of schools — schools for all — the old philosophy of 
life flourished. Under the name of prudence, selfishness 
was deified. The maxim of'Herbert — " Help thyself and 
God will help thee" — was reproduced by Franklin in a 
hundred forms. The child was taught, not that "The 
half is more than the whole," but that " In the race of 
life the devil takes the hindmost." 

Thus greed and avarice were cultivated to the sacri- 
fice of honesty. Calling selfishness prudence led to con- 
founding right and wrong — freedom and slavery. Hence 
we have the Declaration of Independence containing the 
lofty sentiment, "All men are created equal," and the 
Constitution throwing the shield of its protection over 
human bondage. A false system of education led to 
political incongruities of the grossest character, as, in the 
preamble to the Constitution, the declaration of its high 
purpose — to establish justice and secure the blessings of 
liberty — and in the body of the instrument a guaranty 
of the slave-trade for twenty-five years, and a compact 
that it should be the duty of the national army to shoot 
rebellious slaves, and the duty of free citizens, of the free 
States, to hunt down escaping slaves and surrender them 
to their owners in the slave States. 

The failure of the prevailing system of education to 
promote rectitude and right thinking was so complete 
that negroes escaping from slavery were called " fugitives 
from justice !" Its failure was so complete that the very 
streets of Boston in which patriots had struggled to the 
death in the cause of liberty now echoed the groans of 
the slave, and resounded with the clank of his chains. 
Its failure was so complete that in Faneuil Hall, the 
cradle of liberty, slavery was justified. Its failure was 



813 MIND AND HAND. 

SO complete that a senator, for daring to characterize 
slavery as barbaric, was stricken down and beaten with a 
chib, until he lay helpless in a pool of blood on the floor 
of the legislative hall of the great, free republic. 

These are characteristics of the early civilizations, the 
civilizations of Greece and Rome. They are the product 
of selfishness, and they show "that subjective educational 
processes^processes which proceed from the abstract to 
the concrete, thus violating the natural law of investiga- 
tion — produce the same effects in the nineteenth century 
as they did in the first century. 

Ethically, slavery was tried only by the test of self- 
interest. In the North, as in Europe, it was not profit- 
able, and it faded away ; in the South, in the cotton and 
rice fields, it was thought to be profitable, and it spread 
and flourished. That the opposition to slavery, at the 
North, did not grow out of education in the schools, is 
evident, because the sons of the Southern ruling class 
were educated in the high schools and colleges of the 
North ; but they became, notwithstanding such training, 
almost to a man, slavery propagandists. The heinous- 
ness of slavery was perceptible only to those who had no 
personal interest in its perpetuation. It is plain that the 
effect of the education of the schools upon the youth of 
the country was to make them callous to the common 
impressions of right and wrong; in a word, to render 
them thoroughly selfish. 

It is difficult to resist the conclusion that, if slavery had 
been as profitable at the North as it was at the South, it 
would have been perpetuated, and would have poisoned 
the infant civilization of America as that of Kome was 
vitiated and destroyed. Assuming the truth of this 
hypothesis, climate conditions, not education, saved this 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 313 

continent from the scourge of slavery. To the fact that 
a large part of the territory of the United States is situ- 
ated in the temperate zone we owe the elimination of 
slavery from the social problem. 

Existing social conditions in the United States do not 
differ materially from those of the chief countries of 
Europe. We have only a small standing army; but 
the sole great question which divided the people during 
the first hundred years of our political existence — sla- 
very — had to be settled as such questions have been set- 
tled from the beginning of history, as savages settle all 
questions — by violence, by an appeal to the logic of 
brute force. 

Our government differs from the governments of Eu- 
rope both in principle and form, but the governmental 
influence is only one of many influences which unite to 
mould social habits. The democratic principle, adopted 
as the foundation of our political institutions, has not 
served to counteract the tendency to the formation of 
social class distinctions. The people lack the wisdom, or 
the virtue, or both, to insist upon the first prerequisite to 
even an approximation to social equality, namely, univer- 
sal education. Of our population of fifty millions, five 
millions of persons, ten years old and over, are unable to 
read, and six millions are unable to write. In the last 
census decade we made the paltry gain of three per cent, 
in intelligence, but in 1880 we had six hundred thousand 
more illiterates than in 1870. l^early two millions of 
the legal voters in the United States are illiterates. Ev- 
ery sixth man who offers his ballot at the polls is unable 
to write his name. Under such circumstances class dis- 
tinctions of the most pronounced type are inevitable. 

The tendency to the concentration of populations in 



314 MIND AND HAND. 

cities in the United States is not less decided than it is 
in the countries of Europe. In 1820 the population of 
our cities constituted less than one - twentieth of the 
whole population of the country, but in 1880 it consti- 
tuted more than one-fifth of the whole. 

Cities have always been the chief source of societary 
disturbances. In the worst days of the Roman Empire 
tranquillity and prosperity reigned in many of the dis- 
tant provinces. While at the city of Rome " every kind 
of vice paraded itself with revolting cynicism," in the 
provinces " there was a middle class in which good-nat- 
ure, conjugal fidelity, probity, and the domestic virtues 
were generally practised." 

Of one of the youngest large cities in the United 
States the late superintendent of a Training School for 
Waifs says, "Never in the history of this city has infant 
wretchedness stalked forth in such multiplied and such 
humiliating forms. It is hard to suppress the conviction 
that even Pagan Rome, in the corrupt age of Augustus, 
(lid not witness a more rapid and frightful declension in 
morals than that which can to-day be found in the city 
of Chicago." 

The most graphic description ever given of a waif came 
from the lips of John Morrissey.* He said of himself, 

" I was, at the age of seven years, thrown a waif upon 
the streets of Dublin. I slept in alleys and under side- 
walks. I disputed with other waifs the possession of a 
crust. We fought like young savages for the garbage 
that fell from the basket of the scullion. The strongest 



* A noted pugilist, proprietor of gambling-houses in New York 
City and at Saratoga Springs, and a politician who represented a 
New York City district in Congress. 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 315 

won and satisfied the cravings of hunger; the weakest 
starved. I had no idea that anything was to be gained 
by other means than brute force. Hence my code of 
moral and pohtical ethics — the strongest man is the best 
man. I became a pugilist." 

The substantial citizen who passes the street waif with 
contempt should reflect that ten or a dozen years later 
he will meet him, a full-grown man, at the polls, still 
clothed in rags, perhaps, but his peer in all the rights of 
citizenship. It was the unfortunates of the dark alleys 
and noxious streets of ^ew York — the waifs, the savages 
of the John Morrissey type — that made Tweedism* pos- 
sible, that made robbery in the name of law possible, that 
made taxation the equivalent of confiscation in tliat city. 

Mr. Charles Dickens, in " Bleak House," in the course 
of a pen-picture of a wretched quarter of London, under 
the name of " Tom - all - alones," shows how ignorance, 
poverty, and vice react upon society. He says, " There 
is not an atom of Tom's slime, not a cubic inch of any 
pestilential gas in which he lives, not one obscenity or 
degradation about him, not an ignorance, not a wicked- 
ness, not a brutality of his committing but shall work its 
retribution through every order of society, up to the 
proudest of the proud, and to the highest of the high." 

The presence of the poison is already shown in the 
failure of justice. These waifs, grown to man's estate, 
but destitute of education and moral principle, wielding 
the power of the ballot, desecrate the jury -room with 
their vile presence, and tug at the skirts of sheriffs, 

* For an account of the career of William Marcy Tweed, see "The 
American Cyclopaedia," Vol. XYI., p. 85. New York: D. Apple- 
ton & Co., 1881. 



316 MIND AND HAND. 

prosecuting officers, and judges, and notorious criminals 
escape punishment ! So grievous has the abuse become 
that Judge Lynch has opened his summary, awful court 
in almost every State of the Union. 

To say that this class menaces the government v^^ith 
destruction is to state it mildly. In every case of the 
failure of justice the government is in part subverted ; 
for when crime goes unpunished, the law, violated in 
that particular instance, becomes a dead letter ; and when 
lynching shall have become the rule, and the execution 
of the law the exception, government by law will have 
ceased to exist — it will have given way to government 
by force. Then the army will be invoked to shoot down 
the men for whose education the law failed to provide, 
in every city of the land, as it was invoked in Pittsburg 
in 1877. 

What are we doing to avert this danger w^hich threat- 
ens our institutions ? With the exception of here and 
there a weak effort on the part of a few humanitarians, 
as in the training school referred to, we are leaving hun- 
dreds of thousands of waifs to develop into savages, and, 
what is worse, savages with the power to tax civilized 
people ! We have a system of public schools into which 
such children as choose may enter to a certain limit, re- 
main as long as they please, and depart when they please. 
But there are thousands of children in every large city 
who could not enter if they would, and who are not com- 
pelled to receive the civilizing benefits of education, and 
who hence join the army of waifs and study the art of 
savagery ; and, as has been remarked, they go to swell 
the ranks of a populace as depraved as that which in 
Rome cried for " bread and circuses !" and sacked the 
city while it was in flames. 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 317 

The defective, not to say vicious character of our sys- 
tem of education, is shown hj the reckless course of our 
legislators on the subject of the disposition of the public 
domain. William the Conqueror, conceiving that any 
social revolution is incomplete until it disturbs the pro- 
prietorship of land, confiscated the entire landed estates 
of England, and conferred what remained of the proprie- 
tary, after reservations in the Crown, upon his retainers, 
the Normans. Eight hundred years have elapsed since 
the issue of William's land-tenure edict, but it still re- 
mains the controlling feature of the British Constitution. 
It has compelled the deportation of millions of English- 
men ; it has reduced the masses of Scotland to a grind- 
ing poverty, and converted their country into hunting- 
grounds for the amusement of the landlord class ; it has 
depopulated Ireland, and exasperated almost to madness 
the remnant of her people. 

But we have failed to profit by the example of Eng- 
land. Our legislators have been blind to the lessons of 
history, or they have been corrupt. They have been ig- 
norant of political and social laws, or they have been 
wanting in rectitude. In the period of thirty years, 
ended in 1880, Congress gave to railway corporations 
over 240,000 square miles, or 154,067,553 acres, of the 
best public lands in the States and Territories of the 
Union — an area double that of the whole kingdom of 
Great Britain and Ireland, including the adjacent isles. 

On the irth of March, 1883, the Chicago Daily Trih- 
une published a history of these land grants, compiled 
by Mr. Henry D. Lloyd, under the following summary : 

" llie story of the dissipation of our great national 
inheritance — thrown away hy Congress, wasted hy the 
Land Office, stolen hy thieves. A land monopoly worse 



318 MIND AND HAND. 

than that of England^ hegotten in America. English 
monojpoly is in families / American monopoly is in 
corporations ^ and corporations are the only aristocrats 
that have no sotds, and never die^ 

The following passages from the opening paragraphs 
of Mr. Lloyd's history are reproduced here by permission 
of the author : 

" The public are profoundly ignorant of the facts about 
the public land. They know, in a dim way, that it is 
passing out of their hands, and that huge monopolies are 
being created out of the lands which they meant should 
be the inheritance of the settler. The land set apart for 
homes for families has been made into empires for cor- 
porations. In the story recited below, every element of 
human fault and fraud will be seen to have been at work 
in the spoliation of the land of the people. Congress 
has been extravagant and has failed to act when part 
of the results of its extravagance might have been saved. 
The Land Office has been inadequately equipped by Con- 
gress, and has on its own account been careless, dishonest, 
and traitorous to the interests of the people. It has been 
wax in the hands of the great railroad corporations, but 
double-edged steel in the side of the poor settler. It has 
overruled decisions of the Supreme Court and nullified 
acts of Congress to betray its trust and enrich the rail- 
roads, but has refused even to exercise its discretion when 
the home of a settler, held by a righteous title, was to be 
confiscated at the demand of corporate greed. The nig- 
gardliness of Congress makes clerks, on salaries of twelve 
hundred to .eighteen hundred dollars a year, untrained in 
the law, knowing nothing of the rules of evidence, judges 
of the law and facts in cases involving millions of dollars 
and thousands of homes. There is no worse chapter in 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 310 

the history of government than the facts we have to give 
showing the deUberate and heartless evictions of the Eu- 
ropean immigrant and the American settler in order to 
give their farms to covetous corporations. The land- 
grant roads have had millions of acres granted them by 
the Land Office in excess of the grants by Congress. 
The whole story is summed up in the recent remark of 
one who had thoroughly investigated the subject — that 
the history of the management of the land-grant roads 
by the Land Office is a history of the management of the 
Land Office by the railroads. 

"No chapter in this story will be found of more som- 
bre interest than the statements made as to the Supreme 
Court by the Senate Committee on Public Lands, in a re- 
port submitted by Senator Yan Wyck recommending a 
bill to compel the railroads to pay taxes on their lands. 
Its decisions as to the titles of the railroads and the set- 
tlers to the lands, like those of a weathercock, have point- 
ed the way the corporation blew its breath." 

The summary of Mr. Lloyd's paper by the editor of 
the Tribuney as a preface to its publication, and the fore- 
going characterization of the acts of Congress, of the 
Land Office, and of the Supreme Court, by Mr. Lloyd, 
are fully justified by the alleged facts marshalled in the 
body of the sketch ; and these allegations, after a year 
and a half of public^ scrutiny, stand unchallenged. 

It would be difficult to conceive of a more reckless 
series of legislative acts than those through which the 
public domain in the United States has been squandered ; 
and they are rendered either ignorant or vicious by the 
fact that in the vast empire surrendered almost totally 
without consideration, each legislator, in common with 
the people by and for whom he was deputed to act, had 



320 MIND AND HANB. 

a personal interest. Through this series of acts of Con- 
gress the public domain was rudely wrested from its 
rightful owners, the people; the abnormal growth of 
corporate power unduly promoted, and a tendenc}^ to 
the concentration, in a few hands, of the landed estates of 
the country fostered. 

The social and economic effects of this land legislation 
must be very great and far-reaching. Of the effects of 
the concentration of landed estates in a few hands we 
need not speak ; they are sufficiently plain in England, 
Scotland, and Ireland.* But great corporations are a cre- 
ation of yesterday ; they are the product of steam. The 
railway, the factory, the mine of iron or coal, the fur- 
nace, the foundery, and the forge — these vast interests, 
chartered and endowed with certain muniments of sov- 
ereignty, are, as property, almost as indestructible as 
landed estates protiected by the law of primogeniture. 
Men are trained from generation to generation to the 
care and conduct of them, and hence they are far less 
liable to waste and dispersion than private estates, which, 



* "The more essential and important consideration is this — that 
whenever the few rapidly accumulate excessive wealth, the many 
must, necessarily, become comparatively poorer, ... In every case 
in which we have traced out the efficient causes of the present de- 
pression we have found it to originate in customs, laws, or modes of 
action which are ethically unsound, if not positively immoral. Wars 
and excessive war armaments, loans to despots or for war purposes, 
the accumulation of vast wealth by individuals, excessive specula- 
tion, adulteration of manufactured goods, and, lastly, our bad land 
system, with its insecurity of tenure, excessive rents, confiscation of 
tenants' property, its common enclosures, evictions, and depopulation 
of the rural districts — all come under this category." — "Bad Times," 
pp. G5, 117. By Alfred Russel Wallace, LL.D. London : Macmillan 
& Co., 1885. 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. g^l 

in transmission, may be subjected to disastrous changes 
of management. Being also enterprises of a semi-public 
character, the public is bound, as well as their owners, to 
see to their preservation. 

It is to a small number of the greatest of these great 
companies that Congress has given an empire of land 
in tlie West — an area double that owned by the lords 
of England, Scotland, and Ireland. In the railway pro- 
prietor of the United States the two great elements of 
power are united — steam and land. It needs no argu- 
ment to show that only the nation can control the pro- 
prietor of both the land and the railway — the sole means 
of reaching a market for the products of the land. The 
appellative — kingship — to the railway proprietor is not a 
misnomer. He is a real potentate, both by virtue of the 
multitudes of men over whom he rules autocratically, 
and of the magnitude of the revenue he wields. Presi- 
dents come and go, but he remains. Legislators investi- 
gate him and report upon him, but they are met by a 
flat denial of the authority of either State or nation to in- 
terfere with his " vested rights." He claims the right of 
himself and associates to control, absolutely, the internal 
commerce of the country ; and this claim involves the 
pretence that they may confiscate merchandise seeking a 
market by charging, for carriage, the full value of the 
thing transported. 

The railway and the factory, the two great products of 
steam, are new factors in the social problem, and to prop- 
erly control them will require new wisdom ; and the new 
wisdom is not to be drawn from old educational fount- 
ains. 

State legislation has been as vicious as that of the na^ 
tion. The people of nearly every State in the Union 



B22 MIND AND HAND. 

have been made the victims of great frauds and gross ig- 
norance at the hands of their representatives. In nearly 
every State syndicates have been formed with the design 
of securing vahiable franchises without consideration^; 
and to effectuate such designs bribery has been freely and 
successfully resorted to in a vast number of cases. But 
rarely has the guilty agent of the guilty syndicate, or 
the perjured, purchased legislator been brought to jus- 
tice, notwithstanding the fact that exposure has often 
followed the iniquity. 

Evidence of the essentially European character of the 
American civilization is afforded by the prevalence of 
speculation.' In Wall Street, New York, on the Board 
of Trade, Chicago, and on the exchanges of all large cities 
speculation rages. The real transactions of those busi- 
ness marts are very small, indeed, as compared with the 
transactions of a speculative character. On the ]^ew 
York Cotton Exchange the speculative trades in "fut- 
ures" are thirty times more than the cotton sales. On 
the Chicago Board of Trade the speculative trades in 
" futures " are fifteen times more than the sales of grain 
and provisions, and so of the exchanges of all other large 
cities. To support these speculative operations fresh 
money is required to be constantly poured into the pool, 
and it is drawn from every class in the community. 
Very little of the " fresh money " is ever returned. Most 
of it remains in the hands of the pool managers, of those 
whose profession it is to manipulate the markets. Thus 
the fever of speculation extends from centre to circum- 
ference of the country, stimulating bad passions, creating 
distaste for labor, relieving the countryman of his surplus, 
and increasing the already overgrown fortune of the city 
operator. A writer on current topics, discussing this sub- 



EDUCATrON AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 828 

ject, says, " Put yonr linger on one of our great fortunes, 
and nine times out of ten you will feel underneath it the 
cold heart of some one who has mined on the San Fran- 
cisco Stock Exchange, or packed pork on the Chicago 
Board of Trade, or built railroads in Wall Street.""^ 

A sufficient number of the salient features of Ameri- 
can civilization have been brought under review to show 
that the new continent has not borne new social fruits. 
Under extremely favorable physical conditions — a coun- 
try of vast resources, a wide range of climates, and a soil 
of great fertility — we planted old social forces, and old 
social evils are in process of rapid development. We are 
transplanted Europeans, controlled by European mental 
and moral habitudes. And the virile force, evoked by 
the splendid physical opportunities of a vast new coun- 
try, so intensifies the struggle for wealth and power, that 
European social abuses are not only reproduced, but 
sometimes exaggerated in this land of boasted equal 
political rights. 

But notwithstanding the fact that social tendencies in 
America seem to be similar to those of Europe, it is upon 
America alone that the eyes of mankind rest with an ex- 
pression of ardent hopefulness. Nor is this hope desti- 
tute of a basis of rationality. It is in the United States, 
for the first time in all the ages, that a good reason can 
be given for indulging the sentiment of patriotism. Love 
of country here is a due appreciation of the value of the 
right of suffrage. The private soldier who goes forth to 

* "America does not now suffer from this cause [standing armies], 
but nowhere in the world have colossal fortunes, rabid speculation, 
and great monopolies reached so portentous a magnitude, or exerted 
so pernicious an influence." — "Bad Times," p. 80. By Alfred Rus- 
«el Wallace, LL.D. London : Macmillan & Co., 1885. 



324 MIND AND HAND. 

fight the battles of the United States is a man and citi- 
zen, and upon his return from the field he maj, with the 
ballot, devote to the education of his children a share of 
the estate of the army contractor who amassed a fortune 
while he defended the country. All the property in the 
United States, whether honestly or dishonestly acquired, 
is subject to the order of the ballot of the citizen. It 
may be taken for war purposes, and it may be taken for 
educational purposes. In the universality of the right 
of suffrage lies the power of correcting all social evils. 
It is through the right of suffrage that the wrongs inflict- 
ed upon a too patient people by corrupt and ignorant 
legislation may be ultimately righted. By the suffrages 
of the people the tax bill is voted ; and it is through the 
tax bill that the vast estates of corporations and individ- 
uals, whether obtained by dishonest practices or not, may 
be made to contribute to the thorough education of all 
the children of the country. And it is through the 
sentiment of patriotism thus inspired that the right of 
universal suffrage in the United States is destined to 
preservation forever. 

The late proposition to limit suffrage in the city of 
New York is explainable only on the theory put forth 
in this chapter, that our civilization is the product of 
European ideas — that we are Europeans in disguise. On 
any other hypothesis it would be amazing. It is even 
now sufl&ciently startling that the proposition to restrict 
suffrage should precede the proposition to make educa- 
tion universal by making it compulsory, and to purge 
it of its glaring defects. Every attempt to restrict the 
right of suffrage in the United States will, however, fail. 
The right of self-government can be taken from the 
American people only by force. The American citizen 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 335 

will not vote away his right to vote, as the careless Greek 
sold his freedom, and as the Chinaman sells his life. 

That American social abuses do not spring from free 
suffrage is evident, because similar abuses exist in coun- 
tries where the masses have little or no share in the 
government. Social evils are the product of defective 
education. So long as European educational methods 
prevail in this country, so long European social abuses 
will characterize our civilization. Our education is scant 
in quantity and poor in quality; hence the standard of 
the suffrage is lowered by the presence of ignorance and 
depravity. But when the suffrage shall be better in- 
formed, it will be more honest ; and when it shall have 
become more honest and more intelligent, it will have 
gained the power to grapple with social abuses. 

Such examination of history as we have been able to 
make fails to disclose any radical change in educational 
methods for three thousand years. The charge of Mr. 
Herbert Spencer against the schools of England, to wit, 
" That which our school courses leave almost entirely out 
we thus find to be that which most nearly concerns the 
business of life" — this charge applies with almost as 
much force to the schools of the United States as to the 
Greek and Roman schools of rhetoric and logic. Ba- 
con's aphorism — "Education is the cultivation of a just 
and legitimate familiarity betwixt the mind and things " 
— is two hundred and fifty years old, but it has as yet 
exerted scarcely an appreciable influence upon the meth- 
ods of our public schools. We still reverse the natural 
order of investigation proceeding from the abstract to the 
concrete, thus lumbering the mind of the student with 
trash which must be removed as a preliminary to the 
first step in the real work of education. We still impart 



326 MIND AND HAND. 

a knowledge of words instead of a knowledge of things ; 
we still ignore art, notwithstanding the fact that it is 
through art alone that education touches human life. 
We still inculcate contempt of labor, and teach the stu- 
dent how to " make his way in the world " by his wits, 
rather than by giving an equivalent for what he shall 
receive ; and, worst of all, w^e continue, through subjec- 
tive processes of thought, to charge the mind with self- 
ishness, the essence of depravity. 

Meantime, social problems press for a solution, a solu- 
tion here and now. Oar social problems cannot be set- 
tled as those of Europe have been, for two hundred 
years, by emigration. We have no Columbus, and if we 
had such an explorer, there is no new hemispliere for 
him to discover. The lesson of all history is, that selfish 
people cannot dwell together in unity. The struggle to 
secure more than a fair share of the products of the labor 
of all is sure to end in a quarrel ; the quarrel ends in a 
revolution, and the revolution, under the glare of flames, 
drowns in blood the records of civilization. But in Amer- 
ica the man must live with his fellows. As Mr. Henry 
D. Lloyd well says, in "Lords of Industry," "Our young 
men can no longer go West ; they must go up or down. 
Not new land, but new virtue must be the outlet for the 
future. Our halt at the shores of the Pacific is a mach 
more serious affair than that which brought our ancestors 
to a pause before the barriers of the Atlantic, and com- 
pelled them to practise living together for a few hundred 
years. We cannot hereafter, as in the past, recover free- 
dom by going to the prairies ; we must And it in the 
society of the good." ^ 

* North American Review, June, 1884, p. 553. 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 327 

If we are to find freedom only in the society of the 
good, we must create such a society — a society free from 
selfishness ; for to the stability of society public spirit is 
essential, and with a pure public spirit selfishness is at 
war. Hence, in a system of education like the prevail- 
ing one, which promotes selfishness, the germs of social 
disintegration are present, and, from the beginning, the 
end may with absolute certainty be predicted. It fol- 
lows that any hope of social reform is wholly irrational 
that does not spring from the postulate of a complete 
educational revolution. 

1 The speculaiive habit has so debauched public sentiment in Eng- 
land and America that dislinguislied authors hesitate not to give free 
expression to a feeling of contempt for the ancients because of their 
failure to engage in colossal swindling operations, as witness the 
following : 

" The charges of fraud [in the Attic courts], which are many, are 
of the vulgarest and simplest kind, depending upon violence, on false 
swearing, and upon evading judgment by legal devices. There is not 
a single case of any large or complicated swindling, such as is exhib, 
ited by the genius of modern English and American speculators. 
There is not even such ingenuity as was shown by Verres in his 
government of Sicily to be found among the clever Athenians." — 
' Social Life in Greece," p. 408. By the Rev. J. P. Mahaffy, F.T.C.D. 
London : Macmillan & Co., 1883. 

2" On all hands of us, there is the announcement, audible enough, 
that the Old Empire of Routine has ended; that to say a thing has 
long been, is no reason for its continuing to be. The things which 
have been are fallen into decay, are fallen into incompetence ; large 
masses of mankind, in every society of our Europe, are no longer 
capable of living at all by the things which have been. When mil- 
lions of men can no longer by their utmost exertion gain food for 
themselves, and ' the third man for thirty-six weeks each year is short 
of third-rate potatoes,' the tilings which have been must decidedly 
prepare to alter themselves! "—"Lectures on Heroes," p. 157. By 
Thomas Carlyle. Chapman & Hall's People's Edition. 

"Change the sources of a river, and you will change it throughout 
its whole course; change the education of a people, and you will 
alter their character and their manners:" — " Studies of Nature," Vol. 
n., p. 575. By Bernardin St. Pierre. London ; Henry G. Bohn, 1846. 



MIND AND HAND. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

THE MANUAL ELEMENT IN EDUCATION IN 1884. 

The Kindergartea and the Manual Training School one in Principle. 
—Russia solved the Problem of Tool Instruction by Laboratory 
Processes. — The Initiatory Step by M. Victor Della-Vos, Director 
of the Imperial Technical School of Moscow in 1868. — Statement 
of Director Della-Vos as to the Origin, Progress, and Results of the 
New System of Training. — Its Introduction into all the Technical 
Schools of Russia.— Dr. John D. Runkle, President of the Massa- 
chusetts Institute of Technology, recommends the Russian System 
in 1876, and it is adopted. — Statement of Dr. Runkle as to how 
he was led to the adoption of the Russian System. — Dr. Woodward, 
of "Washington University, St. Louis, Mo., establishes the second 
Sdiool in this Country. — His Historical Note in the Prospectus of 
1882-83.— First Class graduated 1883. — Manual Training in the 
Agricultural Colleges — In Boston, in New Haven, in Baltimore, in 
San Francisco, and other places. — Manual Training at the Meeting 
of the National Educational Association, 1884. — Kindergarten and 
Manual Training Exhibits. — Prof. Felix Adler's School in New 
York City — the most Comprehensive School in the World. — The 
Chicago Manual Training School the first Independent Institution 
of the Kind — its Inception; its Incorporation; its Opening. Its 
Director, Dr. Belfield. — His Inaugural Address. — Manual Training 
in the Public Schools of Philadelphia. — Manual Training in twen- 
ty four States.— Revolutionizing a Texas College. — Local Option 
Law in Massachusetts. — Department of Domestic Economy in the 
Iowa Agricultural College. — Manual Training in Tennessee, in the 
University of Michigan, in the National Educational Association, 
in Ohio. — The Toledo School for both Sexes. — The Importance of 
the Education of Woman. — The Slojd Schools of Europe. 

The principle of the manual training school exists in 
the kindergarten, and for that principle we are indebted 
directly to Froebel, and indirectly to Pestalozzi, Come- 




M. VICTOR BELLA -VOS, THE FOUNDEB OF MANUAL TRAINING IN 
RUSSIA. 



THE MANUAL ELEMENT IN EDUCATION IN 1884. 331 

nius, Rousseau, and Bacon. But it was reserved for 
Russia to solve the problem of tool instruction by the 
laboratory process, and make it the foundation of a great 
reform in education. The initiatory step was taken in 
1868 by M. Victor Delia- Yos, Director of the Imperial 
Technical School of Moscow. The following statement 
is extracted from the account given by Director Della- 
Yos of the exhibit of the Moscow school at Pliiladelphia 
(Centennial of 1876), and at the Paris Exposition in 1878, 
as best showing the inception of the new education : 

'' In 1868 the school council considered it indispensa- 
ble, in order to secure the systematical teaching of ele- 
mentary practical work, as well as for the more conven- 
ient supervision of the pupils while practically employed, 
to separate entirely the school workshops from the me- 
chanical works in which the orders from private indi- 
viduals are executed, admitting pupils to the latter only 
when they have perfectly acquired the principles of prac- 
tical labor. 

" By the separation alone of the school workshops from 
the mechanical works, the principal aim was, however, 
far from being attained. It was found necessary to 
work out such a method of teaching the elementary 
principles of mechanical art as, firstly, should demand 
the least possible length of time for their acquirement ; 
secondly, should increase the facility of the supervis- 
ion of the graded employment of the pupils ; thirdly, 
should impart to the study of practical work the charac- 
ter of a sound systematical acquirement of knowledge ; 
and fourthly and lastly, should facilitate ihe demon- 
stration of the progress of every pupil at every stated 
time. Everybody is well aware that the successful study 
of any art whatsoever, free-hand or linear drawing, mu- 



332 MIND AND HAND. 

sic, singing, painting, etc., is only attainable when the 
first attempts at any of them are strictly subject to the 
laws of gradation and snccessiv^eness, when every student 
adheres to a definite method or school, surmounting little 
by little, and by certain degrees, the difficulties encoun- 
tered. 

" All those arts which we have just named possess a 
method of study which has been well worked out and 
defined, because, since they have long constituted a part 
of the education of the well-instructed classes of people, 
they, could not but become subject to scientific analysis, 
could not but become the objects of investigation, with a 
view of defining those conditions which might render the 
study of them as easy and well regulated as possible. 

" If we except the attempts made in France in the year 
1867 by the celebrated and learned mechanical engineer, 
A. Cler, to form a collection of models for the practical 
study of the principal methods of forging and welding 
iron and steel, as well as the chief parts of joiners' work, 
and this with a purely demonstrative aim, no one, as far 
as we are aware, has hitherto been actively engaged in 
the working out of this question in its application to the 
study of hand labor in workshops. To the Imperial 
Technical School belongs the initiative in the introduc- 
tion of a systematical method of teaching the arts of 
turning, carpentering, fitting, and forging. 

" To the knowledge and experience in these specialties, 
of the gentlemen intrusted with the management of the 
school workshojDS, and to their warm sympathy in the 
matter of practical education, we are indebted for the 
drawing up of the programme of systematical instruction 
in the mechanical arts, its introduction in the year 1868 
into the workshops, and also for the preparation of the 



THE MANUAL ELEMENT IN EDUCATION IN 1884 883 

necessary auxiliaries to study. In the year 1870, at the 
exhibition of manufactures at St. Petersburg, the school 
exhibited its methods of teaching mechanical arts, and 
from that time they have been common to all the tech- 
nical schools of Russia. 

" And now (1878) we present our system of instnic- 
tion, not as a project, but as an accomplished fact, con- 
iirmed by the long experience of ten years of success in 
its results." 

For the introduction of the manual element in educa- 
tion to the United States we are indebted to the intel- 
lectual acumen of Dr. John D. Runkle, Ph.D., LL.D., 
Walker Professor of Mathematics, Institute of Technol- 
ogy, Boston, Mass. In 1876 Doctor Runkle was Presi- 
dent of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 
his oflScial report for that year he gave an exhaustive ex- 
position of the Russian system, in the course of w^hich he 
said, 

" We went to Philadelphia, therefore, earnestly seeking 
for light in this as well as in all other directions, and this 
special report is now made to ask your attention to a fun- 
damental, and, as I think, complete solution of this most 
important problem of practical mechanism for engineers. 
The question is simply this. Can a system of shop-work 
instruction be devised of sufficient range and quality 
which will not consume more time than ought to be 
spared from the indispensable studies ? 

" This question has been answered triumphantly in the 
affirmative, and the answer comes from Russia. It gives 
me the greatest pleasure to call your attention to the ex- 
hibit made by the Imperial Technical Schools of St. 
Petersburg and Moscow, consisting entirely of collections 
of tools and samples of shop-work by students, illustrat- 



334 MIND AND HAND. 

iiig the system wliicli has made these magnificent results 
possible." 

In conclusion Doctor Runkle made the following ear- 
nest recommendation : 

" In the light of the experience which Kussia brings us, 
not only in the form of a proposed system, but proved 
by several years of experience in more than a single 
school, it seems to me that the duty of the Institute is 
plain. We should, without delay, complete our course in 
Mechanical Engineering by adding a series of instruction 
shops, which I earnestly recommend." 

In accordance wdth this recommendation the "new 
school of Mechanic Arts " was created, and made part of 
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

In his report for 1877 Doctor Runkle said, 

" The plan announced in my last report, of building 
a series of shops [laboratories] in which to teach the 
students in the department of Mechanical Engineering 
and others the use of tools, and the fundamental steps in 
the art of construction, in accordance w^ith the Russian 
system, as exhibited at Philadelphia in 1876, has been 
carried steadily forward, and I have now the pleasure of 
announcing its near completion.'' 

Reference is also made in the same report to the action 
of the trustees of the Institute in acknowledging the re- 
ception of certain models illustrating the system of Me- 
chanic Art education, presented by the government of 
Russia, as follows : 

"At a meeting of the Corporation of the Massachu- 
setts Institute of Technology, held I^overaber 20, 1877, 
a communication from his Excellency, Hon. George H. 
Boker, American Minister at St. Petersburg, was read, 
announcing the gift to this Institute of eight cases of 




DR. JOHN D. RUNKLE, THE FOUNDER OF MANUAL TRAINING IN THE 
UNITED STATES. 



THE MANUAL ELEMENT IN EDUCATION IN 1884. 337 

models, illustrating the system of Mechanic Art educa- 
tion, as devised and so successfully applied at the Impe- 
rial Technical School of Moscow. The undersigned have 
been charged with the agreeable duty of transmitting to 
his Imperial Highness the following resolutions : 

^'Itesolved, That the Corporation of the Massachusetts 
Institute of Technology takes this opportunity to cor- 
dially congratulate his Imperial Highness, Prince Pierre 
d'Oldenbourg, that, at the Imperial Technical School of 
Moscow, education in the Mechanic Arts has been for 
the first time based upon philosophical and purely edu- 
cational grounds, fully justifying for it the title of the 
' Russian system.' 

'''•Resolved^ That this Corporation hereby tenders its 
grateful thanks to his Imperial Highness for his most 
valuable gift, with the assurance that these models will 
be of the greatest aid in promoting Mechanic Art educa- 
tion not only in the School of this Institute, but in all 
similar schools throughout the United States." 

Appreciating the value of the services rendered to the 
cause of the new education by Dr. Runkle, in introduc- 
ing to the schools of the United States tool practice by 
laboratory methods, and desiring to inform the public of 
the course of thought which led to results so important, 
the author addressed him on the subject. His reply, 
under date of May 22, 1884, is in substance as follows : 

" From the first the course in Mechanical Engineering 
has been an important one in the Institute of Technology. 
A few students came with a knowledge of shop-work, 
and had a clear field open to them on graduation, but the 
larger number found it difficult to enter upon their pro- 
fessional work without first taking one or two years of 
apprenticeship. This always seemed to me a fault in the 



338 MIXD AND HAND. 

education, and jet I did not see the way to remedy it 
without building up manufacturing works in connection 
with the school — a step which I knew to be an inversion 
of a true educational method. 

"At Philadelphia, in 1876, almost the first thing I saw 
was a small case containing three series of models — one 
of chipping and filing, one of forging, and one of ma- 
chine-tool work. I saw at once that they were not parts 
of machines, but simply graded models for teaching the 
manipulations in those arts. In an instant the problem 
I had been seeking to solve was clear to my mind ; a 
plain distinction between a Mechanic Art and its appli- 
cation in some special trade became apparent. 

" My first work was to build up at the Institute a series 
of Mechanic Art shops, or laboratories, to teach these 
arts, just as we teach chemistry and physics by the same 
means. At the same time I believed that this discipline 
could be made a part of general education, just as we 
make the sciences available for the same end through 
laboratory instruction. 

" All teaching has in an important sense a double pur- 
pose : first, the cultivation of the powers of the individ- 
ual, and second, the pursuit of siuiilar subjects, by sub- 
stantially the same means, as a professional end. l^ow 
we use our shops [laboratories] both for educational and 
professional ends. ... In brief, we teach the mechanic 
arts by laboratory methods, and the student applies the 
special skill and knowledge acquired, or not, as circum- 
stances or his inclinations dictate." 

The second manual training school in this country was 
founded as a department of Washington University, St. 
Louis, Mo., by Dr. C. M. Woodward. In a paper read 
before the St. Louis Social Science Association, May 16, 



THE MANUAL ELEMENT IN EDUCATION IN 1884. 389 

18Y8, Dr. Woodward discussed the subject of education 
both philosophically and jDractically. In the course of 
his address he gave a full account of the Russian system 
of manual training as expounded by Dr. Runkle, en- 
dorsed it, and recommended it to the people of St. Louis 
as the true method of education in the following preg- 
nant sentence : " The manual education which begins in 
the kindergarten, before the children are able to read a 
word, should never cease." '^ 

In the same j^aper Dr. Woodward thus modestly de- 
scribes the beginning of the school wdiich is now one of 
the most highly-esteemed educational institutions of St. 
Louis : 

"With the aid of our stanch friend, Mr. Gottlieb 
Conzelman, we fitted up during last summer a wood- 
working shop, with work-benches and vises for eighteen 
students ; a second shop for vise-w^ork upon metals and 
for machine - work ; and a third with a single outfit of 
blacksmith's tools. During the last few months system- 
atic instruction has been given to different classes in all 
these shops. Special attention has been paid to the use 
of w^ood - working hand - tools, to wood - turning, and to 
filing." 

These tentative steps promoted a healthy public senti- 
ment, and attracted the attention of several wealthy men, 
who in 1879 contributed the funds for the permanent 
foundation of the school. The prospectus for the year 

* The pressing. problem of the time in methods of practical educa- 
tion is to devise suitable manual exercises for the school period em- 
braced in the interim between the end of the kindergarten series of 
lessons and the beginning of the series of laboratory exercises de- 
scribed in this worl?; — the grammar-school period — for children of 
both sexes from six to fourteen years of age. 



340 MIND AND HAND. 

1882-83 contains the following "historical note," which 
shows great progress : 

"The ordinance establishing the Manual Training 
School was adopted by the Board of Directors of the 
University, June 6, 1879. 

"The lot w^as purchased and the building begun in 
August of tlie same year. In the November following a 
prospectus of the school was published. In June, 1880, 
the building being partially equipped, was opened for 
public inspection, and a class of boys was examined for 
admission. On September 6, .1880, the school began 
with a single class of about fifty pupils. The wdiole 
number enrolled during the year was sixty -seven. A 
public exhibition of drawing and shop-work was given 
June 16, 1881. 

" The second year of the school opened September 12, 
1881, and closed June 14, 1882. There were two classes, 
sixty-one pupils belonging to the first year, and forty-six 
to the second year, making one hundred and seven in all. 
Of the second -year class, forty -two had attended the 
school the previous year. 

" The third year of the school will open on September 
11th, when three classes will be present. 

" The large addition now in progress (June, 1882) is to 
be completed and furnished by the day set for the exam- 
ination of candidates for admission, September 8th. The 
number of pupils in the nev/ first-year class is to be lim- 
ited to one hundred. Nearly one-half of that number 
have already heen received. "^^ 

The capacity of the school since the completion of the 
" addition " alluded to in the " historical note " is two 
hundred and forty students. The first class was gradu- 
ated in June, 1883 ; the second class in June, 1884. The 



THE MANUAL ELEMENT IN EDUCATION IN 1884 841 

establishment of this excellent school is due first to the 
energy and educational foresight of Dr. Woodward, and 
second, to the munificent money donations of three citi- 
zens of St. Louis — Mr. Edwin Harrison, Mr. Samuel Cup- 
pies, and Mr. Gottlieb Conzelman. Other citizens em- 
ulated their noble example, and the result was a sufiicient 
fund for the support of the school, whose purpose is to 
demonstrate the practicability of uniting manual and 
mental instruction in the public schools of St. Louis and 
of the country. With a single further quotation from 
the prospectus of the second great manual training 
school in the United States, on the subject of labor, we 
close this too brief notice : 

" One great object of the school is to foster a higher 
appreciation of the value and dignity of intelligent labor, 
and the worth and respectability of laboring men. A boy 
who sees nothing in manual labor but mere brute force 
despises both labor and the laborer. With the acquisi- 
tion of skill in himself comes the ability and willingness 
to recognize skill in his fellows. When once he appre- 
ciates skill in handicraft, he regards the workman with 
sympathy and respect." 

Considerable progress in manual training has been 
made in the State agricultural colleges of the country. 
In twelve of these colleges drawing and tool practice 
have been introduced. Generally the tool practice covers 
pattern-making, blacksmithing, moulding and founding, 
forging and bench-w^ork, and machine-tool work in iron. 
The most pronounced success has been achieved at Pur- 
due University, Lafayette, Ind., under the directorship 
of Prof. Wm. F. M. Goss, who graduated from the school 
of Mechanic Arts of the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- 
nology in 1879. 



342 MIND AND HAND. 

Manual training in connection with the public-school 
system of education has been inaugurated in Boston 
and Milford, Mass. ; New Haven, and the State Normal 
School, New Britain, Conn. ; Omaha, Neb. ;'^ Eau Claire, 
Wis. ; t Moline, Peru, and the Cook County Normal 
School, Normal Park, 111. ; Montclair, N. J. ; Cleveland 
and Barnesville, Ohio ; San Francisco, Cal. ; and Balti- 
more, Md. 

On the occasion of the annual meeting of 1884 of the 
National Educational Association of the United States, 
at Madison, Wis., manual training received a very large 
share of the attention of educators. Yery creditable ex- 
hibits of various manipulations in wood, iron, and steel 
were made by the following institutions, namely, the 
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Purdue Univer- 
sity, the St. Louis Manual Training School, the Illinois 
Industrial University, the University of Wisconsin, and 
the Spring Garden Institute of Philadelphia. There 
were also about thirty kindergarten exhibits, and a large 
number of exhibits of specimens of drawing from public 
schools in various parts of the country. 

Prof. Felix Adler's educational enterprise in the city 
of New York — The Workingman's School and Free Kin- 
dergarten — is unique in this that, while it is entirely a 
work of charity, it is the most comprehensive education- 
al institution in existence, as appears from the following 
description of its course of instruction : 

" The Workingman's School and Free Kindergarten 
form one institution. The children are admitted at the 

* In charge of Albert M. Biimann, B.S., graduate of the St. Louis 
Manual Training School, class of 1885. 

f In charge of William F. Barnes, B.S., graduate of the St. Louis 
Manual Training School, class of 1885. 



THE MANUAL ELEMENT IN EDUCATION IN 1884. 843 

age of three to the kindergarten. They are graduated 
from it at six, and enter the workingman's schooL They 
remain in the school till they are thirteen or fourteen 
years of age. Thereafter those who show decided ability 
receive hiii^her teclmical instruction. For the others who 
leave the school proper and are sent to work, a series of 
evening classes will be opened, in which their indnstrial 
and general education will be continued in various direc- 
tions. This graduate course of the workingman's school 
is intended to extend up to the eighteenth or twenty-first 
year. 

" From the third year up to manhood and womanhood 
— such," says Prof. Adler, " is the scope embraced by the 
purposes of our institution !" 

The following extracts from a late report of the prin- 
cipal of the school, Mr. G. Bamberger, on its " purposes," 
show that they are identical with those of the so-called 
manual training school, and also that its methods are sim- 
ilar : 

'' We, therefore, have undertaken to institute a reform 
in education in the following two ways : We begin 
industrial instruction at the very earliest age possible. 
Already in our kindergarten we lay the foundation for 
the system of work instruction that is to follow. In the 
school proper, then, we seek to bridge over the interval 
lying between the preparatory kindergarten training and 
the specialized instruction of the technical school, util- 
izing the school age itself for the development of indus- 
trial ability. This, however, is only one characteristic 
feature of our institution. The other, and the capital 
one, is, that we seek to combine industrial instruction 
organically with the ordinary branches of instruction, 
thus using it not only for the material purpose of creat- 



344 MIND AND HAND. 

itig skill, but also ideally as a factor of mind-education. 
To our knowledge, such an application of work instruc- 
tion has nowhere as yet been attempted, either abroad or 
in this country. . . . 

"In the teaching of history to these young children 
we hold it essential that the teacher should be entirely 
independent of any text-book, and able to freely handle 
the vast material at his disposal, and to draw from it, as 
from an endless storehouse, with fixed and definite pur- 
pose. We attach even greater importance to the moral 
than to the intellectual significance of history. The ben- 
efits wdiich the understanding, the memory, and the im- 
agination derive from the study of history are not small.. 
But history, considered as a realm of actions, can be made 
especially fruitful of sound influence upon the active, 
moral side of human nature. The moral judgment is 
strengthened by a knowledge of the evolution of m.an- 
kind in good and evil. The moral feelings are purified 
by abhorrence of the vices of the past, and by admira- 
tion of examples of greatness and virtue. Text -books 
are not to be discarded, but their choice is a matter 
of great difiiculty. Thus, all books in which historical 
instruction is given in the shape of printed questions and 
answers are highly objectionable. They are convenient 
bridges which lead to nothing." 

The following extract from a late report of Prof. Ad- 
ler shows the purpose of the establishment of what he 
calls the "model school" to be identical with that of the 
projectors of the St. Louis and Chicago manual training 
schools, namely, the ultimate adoption by the public 
schools of the country of a far more rational system of 
instruction than that which at present prevails. He says, 

" It seemed to us, therefore, far more necessary, far 



THE MANUAL ELEMENT IN EDUCATION IN 1884. 345 

more calculated to really advance tlie public good, that 
one model school should be erected in which the entire 
system of rational and liberal education for the children 
of the poorer class might be exhibited from beginning to 
end. We ventured to lioj^e that such an example, hav- 
ing once been set, would not be without effect upon the 
common-school system at large, and that the extension 
of our w^ork would proceed by the natural course of the 
^ surviv^al of what is fittest.' It was decided, therefore, 
that the twenty -five graduates from the kindergarten 
should be invited to remam with us, that a complete 
school should be instituted, and that a teacher should be 
at once appointed to take in hand the instruction of the 
lowest class. The munificence of Mr. Joseph Seligman, 
to w4iose name we cannot refer without gratitude and re- 
spect, at this stage enabled us to go on with our under- 
taking, w^hen the dearth of funds would otherwise have 
compelled us to wait, or perhaps desist altogether. His 
timely gift of ten thousand dollars was the means of 
starting the school, and on this as well as on other ac- 
counts his memory deserves to be cherished by those 
who cherish the educational interests of the people." 

The Chicago Manual Training School is the only in- 
dependent educational institution of the kind in the 
world. All the schools of this character to wdiich refer- 
ence has been made in this chapter are departments of 
colleges or institutes of technology. The Chicago school 
is unique in another respect : it owes its origin entirely 
to laymen. Professional educators labored long and ear- 
nestly to found the schools we have described, but the 
Chicago school was inspired by men unknown in the 
field of educational enterprise, advocated by a secular 
daily journal, and established by an association of mer- 



346 MIND AND HAND. 

chants, manufacturers, and bankers. For many years the 
Chicago Tribune had very freely and severely criticised 
the educational methods of the public schools. Early in 
the year 1881 its editorial columns were opened to the 
author of this work, who began and continued, therein, 
the advocacy of the establishment of a manual training 
school in Chicago, as a tentative step towards the incor- 
poration in the curriculum of the public schools, of more 
practical methods of instruction. 

The editorial advocacy of the Tribune was continued 
for twelve months, articles appearing about once a week, 
without apparent effect beyond provoking a controversy 
with certain professional educators, who attacked the po- 
sitions assumed by the Tribune. But a public sentiment 
had been created on the subject, and the Commercial 
Club was destined soon to embody that sentiment in ac- 
tion. At its regular monthly meeting, March 25, 1882, 
the subject of reform in methods of education was dis- 
cussed by members of the club, and by men invited to 
be present for that purpose ; the establishment of a school 
was resolved upon, and $100,000 pledged for its support. 

The Chicago Manual Training School Association was 
incorporated April 11, 1883; the corner-stone of its 
building was laid September 24, 1883 ; and the sessions 
of the school commenced on the 4:th of February, 1884, 
with a class of seventy-two students, "selected by exam- 
ination from one hundred and thirty applicants, under 
the directorship of Henry H. Belfield, A.M., Ph.D." 

The Board of Trustees consists of E. W. Blatchford, 
president; R. T. Crane, vice-president; Marshall Field, 
treasurer ; William A. Fuller, secretary ; John Crerar, 
John W. Doane, N. K. Fairbank, Edson Keith, and George 
M. Pullman. 



THE MANUAL ELEMENT IN EDUCATION IN 1884. 847 

The object of the school is stated in the articles of 
incorporation as follows : 

" Instruction and practice in the use of tools, with such 
instruction as may be deemed necessary in mathematics, 
drawing, and the English branches of a high-school course. 
The tool instruction as at present contemplated shall in- 
clude carpentry, wood-turning, pattern-making, iron cliip- 
ping and filing, forge- work, brazing and soldering, the use 
of machine-shop tools, and such other instruction of a 
similar character as may be deemed advisable to add to 
the foregoing from time to time, it being the intention 
to divide the working hours of the students, as nearly 
as possible, equally between manual and mental exer- 
cises." 

From the first annual catalogue, under the title " Build- 
ing and Equipment," we extract the following : 

" The school building is beautifully located on Mich- 
igan Avenue, and contains ample accommodations, in 
rooms for study and work, for several hundred pupils. 

"The equipment in the mechanical department con- 
sists mainly, at present, of twenty -four cabinet-makers' 
benches ; bench and lathe tools of the best quality for 
seventy-two boys ; twenty-four speed lathes, twelve-inch 
swing, thirty inches between centres ; a fifty-two horse- 
power Corliss engine, twelve - inch cylinder, thirty - six 
inch stroke ; two tubular boilers, forty inches in diame- 
ter, fourteen feet long. The Corliss engine, boilers, and 
lathes were made especially for the school. 

"A very valuable scientific library of nearly five hun- 
dred volumes, the property of the American Electrical 
Society, has been placed in the school. To this library, 
which is particularly rich in works pertaining to elec- 
tricity and chemistry, but which contains also cyclope- 



348 MIND AND HAND. 

dias, dictionaries, and other works of reference, the pupils 
have access. 

" The Blatchford Literary Society, an organization of 
pnpils for improvement in composition, (iebate, etc., has 
lately had a handsome donation of money for the pur- 
chase of books to be placed in their alcove in the school 
library. Several periodicals are regularly placed on the 
Hbrary tables through the generosity of the publishers. 

" By the kindness of Dr. Wm. F. Poole, librarian, pu- 
pils are able to obtain books from the Chicago Public 
Library on unusually favorable conditions." 

Thus the Chicago Manual Training School, a practical 
school, a school of instruction in things, a school after 
Bacon's "own heart," sprang from the brains of a num- 
ber of plain, practical business men, full-armed, as 
Minerva from the brain of Jupiter. 

The Trustees were fortunate in securing Dr. Belfield 
for the directorship of the school. Before the introduc- 
tion of the new education to this country, eleven years 
ago, while Russia was struggling with the problem of 
tool practice by the laboratory method. Dr. Belfield urged 
the need of manual training in the public schools of Chi- 
cago, in which he was a teacher. He was met with de- 
rision ; but the president of the Board of Education of 
Chicago and the superintendent of schools are now advo- 
cates of the new system of training. 

In conclusion we present the following extracts from 
the inaugural address of Dr. Belfield, delivered before 
the Chicago Manual Training School Association, June 
19, 1884, as embodying the results of his experience 
and observation as to the value of the new system of 
training : 

"The distinctive feature of the manual training school 



THE MANUAL ELEMENT IN EDUCATION IN 1884. 349 

is the education of the mind, and of the hand as the agent 
of the mind. The time of the pupil in school is about 
equally divided between the study of books and the study 
of things ; between the academic work on the one hand, 
and the drawing and shop-work on the other. Observe, 
I do not say between school-worh and shop-worh, for the 
shop is as much a school as is any other part of the es- 
tablishment. Nor do I mean that the shop gives an edu- 
cation of the hand alone, and the class-room an education 
of the brain ; but I mean that the shop educates hand 
and hrain. That the hand is educated I need not stop 
to prove ; but the shop educates the mind also. 

"Had you been in the wood -working room of this 
school a few hours ago, what would you have seen? 
Twenty-four boys at work at lathes driven by a power- 
ful engine. Are any idle? IS'o. Are any inattentive 
to their work ? No ; you notice the closest and most 
earnest attention, frequently approaching abstraction. 
Here, then, is the cultivation of a most important facul- 
ty of the mind, attention, the power of concentration ; 
and it is worthy of remark that this attention is not an 
enforced attention, but is cheerful, voluntary, and unre- 
mitting. 

"The young workman is engaged on a problem in 
wood, just as, a few hours earlier, he was engaged on a 
problem in algebra. He has before him a drawing made 
to a scale. The problem is this : He must gain a clear 
conception of the object represented by the drawing ; he 
must imagine it ; he must select or cut a block of wood 
of the proper dimensions and of the right quality. It 
must not be too large, for he must guard against waste 
of material and waste of time. It must be large enough, 
for there must be no incompleteness about the finished 



350 MIND AND HAND. 

product of his labor. Observe him as the work grows 
under his hand ; observe the selecting of the proper tools 
for the different parts of the process ; observe the careful 
measuring, the watchful eye upon the position of the 
chisel, the speed of the lathe, the gradual approach of 
the once rectangular block to the model which exists in 
his brain — and you must admit that this work demands 
and develops, not manual dexterity alone, but attention, 
observation, imagination, judgment, reasoning. . . . 

" My own opinion is that an hour in the shop of a 
well-conducted manual training school develops as much 
mental strength as an hour devoted to Yirgil or Legen- 
dre. . . . 

"But of this I am confident, that three years of a 
manual training school will give at least as much purely 
intellectual growth as three years of the ordinary high 
school, because, as has been said, every school hour, wheth- 
er spent in the class-room, the drawing-room, or in the 
shop, is an hour devoted to intellectual training. And I 
am also convinced that the manual training school boy's 
comprehension of some essential branches of knowledge 
will be as far superior to that of the other boy's, as the 
realization of the grandeur and beauty of the Alps to the 
man who has seen their glories is superior to the concep- 
tion of him who has merely read of them. . . . 

" And here is the mistake of those who would degrade 
a manual training school into a manufacturing establish- 
ment. The fact should never be lost sight of for an 
instant that the product of the school should be, not the 
polished article of furniture, not the perfect piece of ma- 
chinery, but the polished, perfect hoy. The acquisition 
of industrial skill should be the means of promoting the 
general education of the pupil ; the education of the hand 



THE MANUAL ELEMENT IN EDUCATION IN 1884. 351 

should be the means of more completely and more effica- 
ciously educating the brain. . . . 

"Take two boys, one with little or no education, the 
other a high -school graduate; let them enter the ma- 
chine-shop of a large manufactory, beginning, as boys 
ignorant of the technique of the trade must begin, at the 
lowest round of the ladder. It cannot be doubted that 
in three or four years the high-school graduate, if he had 
been willing to do the drudgery incident to the place, 
would have reached a higher position than the other boy, 
and would be in a fair way to succeed to some responsi- 
ble post in the establishment. But the graduate of the 
manual training school, by reason of his superior knowl- 
edge of machinery and materials, his skill in the use of 
tools, added to his general mental training, would begin 
at the point reached by the high - school boy after his 
years of apprenticeship. From the day of his entrance 
into the factory he would be conspicuous. While the 
other boys would stand in the presence of the huge Ti-tan 
of the shop lost in the wonder of ignorance, the manual 
training boy would gaze with delight on the marvel of 
mechanism, wrapped in the admiration begotten of a 
thorough understanding of its construction, and strong 
in the consciousness of his mastery of it." 

Manual training was introduced in the Pennsylvania 
State College, experimentally, about three years ago. In 
1883 the course was "greatly extended," and in Sep- 
tember, 1884, it went into full operation. The course 
is substantially the same as that of the Chicago school; 
and that it was the outgrowth of the Russian system, 
and inspired by Dr. Runkle, is shown by the following 
extract from a circular lately issued by Prof. Louis E. 
Peber: 



353 MIND AND HAND. 

" Some may think that the variety of operations in the 
meclianic arts is so great as to make it impossible to give 
the student any real knowledge in the time at his dis- 
posal. It should be borne in mind, however, tliat this 
multiplicity of processes may be reduced to a small num- 
ber of manual operations, and the numerous tools em- 
ployed are only modifications of, or convenient substi- 
tutes for, a few tools wliich are in general use." 

A course in tool practice by the laboratory method has 
been made part of the curriculum of the College of the 
City of New York."^ I am permitted to make an extract 
from a letter written in August last by Alfred G. Comp- 
ton. Professor of Applied Mathematics of the College of 
the City of E"ew York, to Dr. Runkle. I print this ex- 
tract to show the exacting nature of the demands made 
upon instructors by the new education. It is as follows : 

" We are anxious to find, by the opening of our term 
in September, a competent instructor in wood-working 
for our course in mechanic arts, now in its second year. 
He should be a good and ready draughtsman, skilful in 
perspective and projections, and ready in black-board 
sketching, besides being acquainted with the use of tools, 
and apt at class-teaching. He will have at first $1000 a 
year." " 

The lack of competent instructors is the most serious 
difficulty which the new education is destined to encoun- 
ter. The desire to adopt tool practice is so widespread 
among the people that educators, whether willing or oth- 



* "The first report of the Industrial Educational Association of 
New York gives a list of thirty-one schools in that city in which in- 
dustrial education is furnished." — Address of Prof. S. R. Thompson, 
Industrial Department of the National Educational Association, Sara- 
toga Springs, N. Y., July, 1885. 



THE MANUAL ELEMENT TN EDUCATION IN 1884 353 

erwise, are compelled to attempt to gratify the demand. 
At the same time the force of competent instructors is 
very small, and the danger is that the new system of ed- 
ucation will be brought into disrepute through the failure 
of its proper administration. 

In 1882 Mr. Paul Tulane, of Princeton, ]^. J., made a 
large donation, consisting of his realty in the city of 
JSTew Orleans, in aid of education in the State of Louisi- 
ana. In 1884 the University bearing its donor's name 
— Tulane — came into existence. In the deed of dona- 
tion Mr. Tulane declared that by the term education he 
meant to "foster such a course of intellectual develop- 
ment as shall be useful and of solid worth, and not be 
merely ornamental or superficial." Hence manual train- 
ing has been made a prominent feature of the insti- 
tution.* 

There is in operation at Crozet, Ya., a manual training 
school called, after its founder, Mr. Samuel Miller, " The 
Miller Manual Labor School ;" but of the methods of 
training pursued at this school the author is not accu- 
rately informed. 

Girard College, dedicated nearly forty years ago, has 
adopted manual training. In response to a letter by the 
author, asking for information, Mr. W. Heyward Dray- 
ton, of Philadelphia, gives the following historical sketch 
of the introduction and progress of tool practice by the 
laboratory method in that noble institution : 

* John M. Ordway, A.M., late Professor of Metallurgy and Indus- 
trial Chemistry of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has been 
called to New Orleans to organize and direct the manual training 
department of the institution ; and he is assisted by Charles A, 
Heath, B.S., and Everett E. Hapgood, graduates of the School of 
Mechanic Arts of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 



354 MIND AND HAND. 

" From time to time some of the directors recognized 
the importance of mechanical instruction, but after one 
or two attempts further efforts in this direction were 
abandoned, as those proved utter faikires. It was not 
until Dr. Kunkle, of the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- 
nology, at the instance of the late Mr. William Welsh, 
then president of the Board of Directors of City Trusts, 
delivered a short address on the subject in the lecture- 
room of the Franklin Institute in this city, that any prac- 
tical mode of introducing this branch of study into the 
college was presented. 

"... Following as nearly as possible the scheme suggest- 
ed by Dr. Runkle, and aided by many suggestions from 
him, in April, 1882, we began to instruct the larger boys 
to use tools in several kinds of metals. We were so fort- 
unate as to secure the services of a very competent and 
enthusiastic instructor, who confined his instruction mere- 
ly to teaching the use of tools, but without any pretence 
of teaching any trade. The result of two years' experi- 
ence has been so satisfactory that our boys leave the col- 
lege to go to workshops, where they secure sufficient 
wages to support them at once ; and they have, in many 
cases, been found so expert that in a few months their 
wages have been increased. We have been so encour- 
aged by this as a substitute for apprenticing lads, which 
is fast becoming impossible, that we have just erected 
commodious workshops [laboratories], in which, on the 
same system, but to many more boys, we propose to teach 
the use of tools in wood-work also, as we have hereto- 
fore tauo^ht in metals. To this time we have been com- 
es 

pelled, from want of facilities, to confine our instruction 
to about one hundred and seventy-five boys. We expect 
next month (October, 1884) to increase the number to 



THE MANUAL ELEMENT IN EDUCATION IN 1884. 355 

three hundred — only being limited by the youth of the 
pupils, many of whom are too young to permit of their 
handling tools." 

Manual training has been made part of the curriculum 
of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Auburn, 
Ala., and the department is under the direction of a grad- 
uate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.* 

Manual training has been adopted as a branch of edu- 
cation in the Denver (Col.) University, and the director 
of the department is a graduate of the manual training 
department of the Washington University of St. Louis, 
Mo.t 

The present year (1885) witnesses a very important 
addition to the list of manual training schools — that of 
Philadelphia. 

It is not too much to say that Mr. James MacAlister 
has revolutionized the public schools of Philadelphia in 
the short period of two years during which he has held 
the office of superintendent; and the last v^^ave of the 
revolution reveals a fully-eqilipped manual training school 
as part of the public-school system of the conservative, 
grand old Quaker city. And this practical element in 
education is to be free to all public-school boys fourteen 
years of age, who can show themselves qualified to en- 
ter, as witness the following '' rules " of the Philadelphia 
public schools : 

" Promotions to the Manual Training School shall be 
made at the close of the June term, from the Twelfth 

* George H. Bryant, B.S., graduate of the Massachusetts Institute 
of Technology, class of 1883. 

f C. H. Wright, B.S., graduate of the St, Louis Manual Training 
School, class of 1885. 



356 MIND AND HAND. 

Grade, or any higher grade, of the Boys' Grammar, Con- 
solidated and Combined Schools ; but no boy shall be 
promoted who is under fourteen years of age. 

" It shall be the duty of the Principals of the several 
Boys' Grammar, Consolidated and Combined Schools, to 
certify to the superintendent of schools the names of all 
boys of the proper age who have finished the course of 
study in the Twelfth Grade, or any higher grade, and are 
desirous of promotion to the Manual Training School." 

In calling the attention of the public to the establish- 
ment of a manual training school as part of the educa- 
tional system of Philadelphia, a committee of the City 
Board of Education say, under date of June 10, 1885, 

" The undersigned desire to call attention to the new 
manual training school to be opened in this city next 
September. It is intended for boys who have finished 
the Twelfth Grade, or any higher grade, of the Gram- 
mar-school course. The instruction will embrace a thor- 
ough course, so far as it goes, in English, mathematics, 
free-hand and mechanical drawing, and the fundamental 
sciences ; but in addition to* these brandies a carefully 
graded course of manual training will form a leading 
feature of the school. This manual training is intended 
to give the boys such a knowledge of the tools and ma- 
terials employed in the chief industrial pursuits of our 
time as shall place them in more direct and sympathetic 
relations with the great activities of the business world. 
The school will make our public education not only more 
complete and symmetrical in character than it has been 
heretofore, but it will be at the same time better adapted 
to enable the pupils to win their way in life. JSTo matter 
what future a parent may have marked out for his boy — 
whether he be intended for an industrial, a mercantile, or 



THE MANUAL ELEMENT IN EDUCATION IN 1884. 357 

a professional occupation, it is believed that such an edu- 
cation will be of immense advantage to him. Upon the 
industries of the world, to a much larger extent than ever 
before in its history, depend the progress, the prosperity, 
the happiness of society. To prepare boys for this con- 
dition of things will be the aim of this school. The en- 
tire course of instruction and training will be practical 
in the largest and best sense of that term. The culture 
it gives will include the hand as well as the head, and 
its graduates will be trained to work as well as to think. 
The. course will extend over a period of three years, but 
it is so arranged that boys whose intended pursuits in 
life will not warrant spending so much time may partici^ 
pate in its advantages for a shorter period before enter- 
ing upon other studies or a permanent occupation. 

" The Manual Training School has been organized in 
response to a growing sentiment respecting the character 
of public education which has been strongly manifested 
in Philadelphia, and the Board of Public Education be- 
lieve that the movement, when fully understood, will 
meet with the cordial approval of our people. Your 
careful consideration of the nature and objects which 
the school seeks to accomplisli is respectfully solicited." 

This act of the school authorities of the city of Phila- 
delphia is the strongest po^Dular endorsement the theory 
of manual training as an element of education has re- 
ceived. It commits a great city to a fair trial of the new 
education under the most favorable auspices — under the 
conduct of Mr. James MacAlister, one of the most ac- 
complished, as well as most sternly practical educators 
in the United States. 

But this is only part of a general system of manual 
training introduced throughout the whole course of in- 

^5^ 



358 MIND AND HAND. 

struction given in the public schools of Philadelphia. 
There are kindergartens (sub - primaries) for children 
from three to six years of age, and an industrial art 
department for all the students (of both sexes) of the 
grammar schools. In this latter department the course 
of training comprises "drawing and design," "model- 
ling," " wood - carving," " carpentry and joinery," and 
"metal work." These courses, including manual train- 
ing proper, " at the top," form a comprehensive system 
of head and hand training known as the new education. 
Mr. MacAlister says, " The conviction is gradually ob- 
taining among the members of the Board of Education 
[of Philadelphia], and in the public mind, that every 
child should receive manual training; that a complete 
education implies the training of the hand in connection 
with the training of the mind; and that this feature 
must ultimately be incorporated into the public educa- 
tion. What is this but the realization of the principles 
which every great thinker and reformer in education 
has insisted upon, from Comenius, Locke, and Rousseau, 
to Pestalozzi, Froebel, and Spencer !" ^ 

* In a letter to t}ie author, Mr. MacAlister re-enforces the observa- 
tions quoted in the text. He says, 

" I wish you to understand that all my own convictions and action 
in connection with this movement are based upon what in my judg- 
ment should constitute an education fitted to prepare a human being 
for the social conditions of to-day, and not merely upon the industrial 
demands of our time. ... I believe there is a great future for the 
manual training movement in Philadelphia. I feel encouraged to go 
forward with the work. The great principles which underlie the 
system are with me intense convictions ; they mean nothing less than 
a revolution in education. The great ideas of the reformers of school 
training must be realized in the public schools, or they will fail in 
accomplishing the ends for which they were instituted and have been 
maintained." 



THE MANUAL ELEMENT IN EDUCATION IN 1884. 359 

The rapid progress of the revolution in education is 
shown bj the fact that manual training in some form 
has been adopted in certain of the schools of at least 
twenty-four of the States of the American Union. 

In some of the higher educational institutions the new 
education is warmly welcomed, while in others public 
sentiment alone compels its adoption. The State Agri- 
cultural and Mechanical College of Texas has been rev- 
olutionized in this way. A member of the Faculty* 
writes as follows: 

" This institution was opened on the 4th of October, 
1876. In spite of its name, the conditions of its endow- 
ment, and its avowed object, it was founded on the plan 
pf the old classical and mathematical college, and had 
ho industrial features whatever till the beginning of the 
year 1880. At that time the public sentiment of the 
State had condemned so decidedly and repeatedly the 
misappropriation of the funds, and perversion of the en- 
ergies of the college under its administration as a literary 
school, that the directors found it necessary to reorgan- 
ize it by accepting the resignation of the members of 
the faculty without exception, and calling in a new corps 
of instructors. In 1880-81 a large dormitory building 
was converted into a shop [laboratory]. This was fitted 
with tools for elementary instruction in wood-working 
for the accommodation of about fifty students. A small 
metal - working plant was also erected, the whole being 
furnished with power from a twelve-horse-power engine. 
Since that time a brick shop [laboratory] has been pro- 
vided for the accommodation of the metal-working ma- 
chinery, which now includes the principal machines used 

* H. H. Dinwiddle, Professor of Chemistry, Chairman of the Faculty. 



360 MIND AND HAND. 

in ordinary iron-working, all driven bj a twenty-horse- 
power engine." 

Massachusetts, the cradle of the American common- 
school system, is the first State to legalize by statute the 
new education, placing manual training on an equal foot- 
ing with mental training, by the following act : 

" Section I. of Chapter XLIY. of the Public Statutes, 
relating to the branches of instruction to be taught in 
public schools, is amended by striking out in the eighth 
line the words 'and hygiene,' and inserting instead the 
words ' hygiene and the elementary use of hand-tools ;' 
and in any city or town where such tools shall be intro- 
duced they shall be purchased by the school committee 
at the expense of such city or town, and loaned to such 
pupils as may be allowed to use them free of charge, 
subject to such rules and regulations, as to care and cus- 
tody, as the school committee may prescribe." ^ 

The Legislature of Connecticut adopted a similar stat- 
ute last year (1884). 

The Iowa Agricultural College is the first educational 
institution in the country to recognize the impoi'tance 
of instruction in the arts of home life. In this college 
domestic economy has been elevated to the dignity of a 
department called the " School of Domestic Economy," 
with the following '' special faculty :" 

The President, Mrs. Emma P. Ewing, Dean. Domestic Economy. 
J. L. Budd Horticulture and Gardening. 

A. A. Bennett Chemistry. 

B. D. Halsted Botany. 

D. S. Faircliild Hygiene and Physiology. 

Laura M. Saunderson Elocution. 

* ' ' School Laws of Massachusetts. Supplement to the Edition of 
1883, containing the Additional Legislation to the Close of the Legis- 
lative Session of 1885; issued by the State Board of Education." 



THE MANUAL ELEMENT IN EDUCATION IN 1884. 361 

The course of study is as follows : 

FIRST YEAR. 



First Term. 

Domestic Economy. 

Botany. 

Physical Training. 

Household Accounts. 



Second Term. 
Domestic Economy. 
Physiology and Hygiene. 
Dress-fitting and Millinery, 

Essavs. 



First Term. 

Domestic Economy. 

Chemistry. 

Duties of the Nurse. ' 

Designing and Free-hand Draw 

ing. 
Landscape and Floral Gardening 



SECOND YEAR. 

Second Term. 
Domestic Economy. 
Home Architecture. 
Home Sanitation. 
Home Esthetics and Decorative 

Art. 
Essays and Graduating Thesis. 



Mrs. Ewing, dean of the school, thus states, clearly 
and powerfully, the reasons for its establishment and its 
purposes : 

" This school is based upon the assumption that no 
industry is more important to human happiness than that 
which makes the home ; and that a pleasant home is an 
essential element of broad culture, and one of the surest 
safeguards of morality and virtue. It was organized to 
meet the wants of pupils who desire a knowledge of the 
principles that underlie domestic economy, and the course 
of study is especially arranged to furnish women instruc- 
tion in applied house-keeping and the arts and sciences 
relating thereto — to incite them to a faithful performance 
of the every-day duties of life, and to inspire them with 
a belief in the nobleness and dignity of a true woman- 
hood. 

"]^o calling requires for its perfect mastery a greater 



363 MIND AND HIND. 

amount of practice and theory combined than that of 
domestic economy, and students, in addition to recita- 
tions and lectures on the various topics of the course, 
receive practical training in all branches of house-work, 
in the purchase and care of family supplies, and in gen- 
eral household management. They are not, however, 
required to perform a greater amount of labor than is 
necessary for the desired instruction. 

" The course of study is for graduates of colleges and 
universities. It extends through two years, and leads to 
the degree of Master of Domestic Economy." ^ 

The Le Moyne IN'ormal Institute of Memphis, Tenn., 
is a private school, "sustained chiefly by benevolently 
disposed people at the E'orth, for colored youth." In a 
letter to the author the principal of this school thus de- 
scribes the manual features of its curriculum : 

"Besides our Normal work proper, we give girls of 
the school two years' training in needle-work of different 
kinds, one year's instruction in choice and preparation of 
foods, with practice in an experimental kitchen, and six 
months' training in nursing or care of the sick. One 
hour a day is given to each of the foregoing subjects for 
the time indicated. 

"1 am about to erect workshops for training for our 
boys in the use of wood-working tools, and in iron-work- 
ing and moulding — the course to comprise two years' 
time, two hours per day at the benches. We shall also 
have type-setting and printing as specialties for individ- 
ual students. This work will be in operation in Janu- 
ary, 1886." t 



* Annual Catalogue of the Iowa Agricultural College. 
•I- A. J. Steele. 



THE MANUAL ELEMENT IN EDUCATIor^ IN 1884. 363 

The professor in charge of the Mechanical Engineer- 
ing Department of the University of Michigan writes to 
the author as follows : 

"There can be no doubt in the mind of a sane man 
that this practical instruction [laboratory work] is exact- 
ly what is needed by our engineering students. We are 
assured of that fact by the expression of gratification on 
the part of our engineering alumni to find here the very 
instruction whicli they were obliged to spend two or 
three years to secure after graduating. We give our 
students work of an elementary character for a few 
weeks, or until they become accustomed to tools, when 
we put them to work on some part of a machine. If 
they spoil it, well and good — it goes into the scrap-heap; 
if they succeed, they have the pleasure of seeing a per- 
fect machine grow up under their eyes and hand. Stu- 
dents having matured minds, as most of ours have, work 
better with a definite plan in view. We always require 
them to work from drawings. Our course in forging is 
very popular ; and it is especially useful, as it gives our 
young men that knowledge of the different kinds of iron 
and steel which will be of the greatest benefit to them 
as engineers." * 

The J^ational Educational Association of the United 
States, at its last meeting, at Saratoga Springs, IsT. Y. 
(1885), took a great step forward in the adoption of a 
resolution f endorsing the kindergarten. The association 
was, however, singularly illogical in its subsequent ac- 

* Mortimer E. Cooley, Assistant Engineer, U. S. Navy. 

f ''Resolved, That we trust the time is near at hand when the true 
principles of the kindergarten will guide all elementary training, and 
when public sentiment and legislative enactment will incorporate the 
kindergarten into our public-school system." 



364 MIND AND HAND. 

tion, in voting to lay npon the table a resolution"^ recom- 
mending tlie introduction of manual training to the pub- 
lic schools. The kindergarten and manual training are 
one in principle, and should be one in practice. All 
educators will soon see this, and the National Education- 
al Association will no doubt soon |)lace itself as heartily 
on record in support of manual training as it has already 
done in support of the kindergarten. 

Ohio ranks as the third State in the Union industrially, 
and she is making great strides in the direction of a more 
practical system of education. This is shown by the 
prominent place given to instruction in the mechanic 
arts in the State University at Columbus, by the pros- 
perity of the Case School of Applied Science, and the in- 
troduction of manual training to the public-school sys- 
tem at Cleveland, and by the establishment of the Scott 
Manual Training School at Toledo. The city of Toledo 
owes the inception of the movement in support of the 
new education to the munificence of the late Jesup W. 
Scott, who during his life conveyed to trustees for pur- 
poses of industrial education, in connection with the 
public-school system, certain valuable real estate. After 
the death of Mr Scott, his three sons,f still residents of 
Toledo, supplemented their father's donation with a suf- 
ficient sum of money to secure the erection and com- 
plete equipment of a manual training school for three 
hundred and fifty pupils. 

The school is modelled after the schools of St. Louis 
and Chicago ; but it gives only the manual side of the 



* ''Resolved, That we recognize the educational value of training 
the hand to skill in the use of tools, and recommend that provision 
be made, as far as practicable, for such training in public schools." 

f William F., Frank J., and Maurice Scott. 



THE MANUAL ELEMENT IN EDUCATION IN 1884. 365 

curriculum, because it is conducted in connection with 
the public High School, receiving its pupils therefrom. 
It opened in the autumn of 1884 with sixty pupils, ten 
of whom were girls. Its register now numbers two hun- 
dred, fifty of whoni are girls. Its course for boys is sub- 
stantially the same as that of the Chicago school. The 
course for girls includes free-hand and mechanical draw- 
ing, designing, modelling, wood-carving, cutting, fitting, 
and making garments, and domestic science, including 
food preparation and household decoration. A distin- 
guished lawyer and citizen of Toledo,"^ who has been 
prominent in the work of establishing the school, says, 

" The brightest and most faithful pupils of the High 
School have eagerly availed themselves of the opportunity 
for manual instruction, and the zeal with which this new 
work is pursued has added a new^ charm to school life." 

The school is in charge of Mr. Ral23h Miller, B.S., who 
is assisted by Mr. Geo. S. Mills, B.S.f It is especially 
interesting, both as the newest educational enterprise and 
because it places the sexes on a footing of absolute equal- 
ity. Reform in education must begin with w^oman, for 
it is from her that man inherits his notable traits, and 
from her that he receives the earliest and most enduring 
impressions. In the arms of the mother the infant mind 
rapidly unfolds. It is in the cradle, in the nursery, and 
at the fireside that the child becomes father of the man. 
The regeneration of the race through education must, 
then, begin with the child, and be directed by the moth- 
er ; and this being the fact, the education of woman be- 
comes far more imperative than that of man. 

* Hon. A. E. Macomber. 

f Graduates of the St. Louis Manual Training School, class of 1884. 



366 MIND AND HAND. 

That the ancients made so little progress in morals is 
due to the fact of their neglect of the education of wom- 
an, l^either in Egypt nor Persia was provision made 
for her mental or moral training. There were schools 
for boys in Greece, but none for girls ; and not till late 
in the Empire was there any special culture for girls in 
Kome. 

In the Middle Ages learning was confined to the relig- 
ious orders. The narrow bounds of the convent con- 
tained all there was of science and art. In the castle 
and at the tournament woman ministered to man's pride 
and vanity; and in the peasant's hut, which was the 
abode equally of ]30verty and ignorance, she endured 
both mental and moral starvation. Sir Walter Raleigh, 
Lord Bacon, Swift, Addison, Lord Chesterfield, Dr. John- 
son, and Southey treated woman with mingled contempt 
and pity, and yet they were familiar with the story of 
Lucretia, of Virginia, and of the Maid of Orleans ! But 
Shakespeare, with a sublimer genius, portrayed a Cor- 
delia, a Desdemona, an Imogen, and a Queen Catharine, 
and with rare prevision of a future better than the age 
he knew, wrote these glowing lines : 

' ' Falsehood and cowardice 
Are things that women highly hold in hate." 

This is the rational age, though not less truly chival- 
rous than that of Arthur and his knights ; for, as Ruskin 
well says, "The buckling on of the knight's armor by 
his lady's hand is the type of an eternal truth — that the 
soul's armor is never well set to the heart unless a wom- 
an's hand has braced it." ^ 

* "Sesame and Lilies," p. 97. By John Ruskin, LL.D. New 
York: John Wiley & Sons, 1884. 



THE MANUAL ELEMENT IN EDUCATION IN 1884. 367 

The distinguishing features of this time are its homes 
and its schools, and the purity of the one and the effi- 
ciency of the other depends upon woman. It was re- 
served for Froebel to rescue woman from the scorn of 
preceding ages by declaring her superior fitness for the 
office of teacher — the most exalted of civil functions. 

The growth of the kindergarten has not been com- 
mensurate with its importance. Indifference and preju- 
dice have united to discourage progress. Ancient con- 
tempt of childhood — that contempt which in Persia 
excluded the boy from the presence of his father until 
the fifth year of his age ^ — projects its sombre shadow 
down the ages. But manual training, which is the kin- 
dergarten in another form, is leading captive the imagi- 
nation of the American people, and where the imagina- 
tion leads, woman is in the van. Woman is to man 
what the poet is to the scientist, what Shakespeare was 
to IS^ewton, the celestial guide. She tempts to deeds of 
heroism and self-sacrifice. She is less selfish than man, 
because a more vivid imagination inspires her with a 
deeper feeling of compassion for the misfortunes and 
follies of the race. Her intuitions are truer than those 
of man, her ideals higher, her sense of justice finer, and 
of duty stronger; and she has a better appreciation of 
the moral value of industry, remembering the tempta- 
tions of her sex to evil through habits of idleness, en- 
forced by the decrees of custom. And she is our teach- 
er, whether we will or no — our teacher from the cradle 
to the grave — and it is through her jninistry that we are 
destined to realize our highest mental and moral ideals.^ 

This sketch of the history of manual training in the 

* "Herodotus," Clio L, p. 136. 



368 MIND AND HAND. 

United States is doubtless incomplete. It is, however, 
sujBScient to show that the subject is already one of 
absorbing interest in all parts of the country. 

Manual training in the public schools of Europe can 
scarcely be called educational, since the pupils usually 
make articles for household use. The purpose is purely 
industrial, and hence the mental culture received in the 
course of the manual exercise is the mere incident of a 
mechanical pursuit. But the making of things in the 
schools of Europe is gradually extending. 

In Denmark an annual appropriation ($2000) is made 
by the Legislature for the encouragement of slojd (hand- 
cunning) in the schools. All pupils in Danish and Swed- 
ish schools make things. 

In Germany, Dr. Erasmus Schwab published in Vien- 
na, in 1873, a book, "The Work School in the Common 
School." Rittmeister Claussen Yon Kaas, of Denmark, 
travelled through Germany and delivered lectures on 
manual training, and now there is a considerable agita- 
tion of the subject. 

In Finland all the country schools are slojd schools. 

In 1881 the Legislature of Norway appropriated $1250 
for the support of slojd in the schools. 

In France a law (1882) makes manual training obliga- 
tory, and a school for training teachers has been estab- 
lished — " L'ecole Normale Superieure de travail Manuel'^ 
— in which there are about fifty students. Prof. G, So- 
licis was the chief supporter of manual training in France. 

In Sweden, in 1876, there were eighty slojd schools. 
In 1877 the number had increased to one hundred ; in 
1878, to one hundred and thirty ; in 1879, to two hun- 
dred ; in 1880, to three hundred ; in 1881, to four hun- 
dred ; and in 1882, to five hundred. 



THE MANUAL ELEMENT IN EDUCATION IN 1884. 369 

In Naas, in Sweden, there is a seminary for the train- 
ing of slojd teachers.* Of this seminary Otto Salomon is 
director. In the slojd schools small articles are made for 
use in the house, kitchen, on the farm, etc. The course 
of instruction embraces one hundred models. The mate- 
rials for the first series of twenty-five models cost about 
40 cents ; for the second series of twenty-five the cost is 
Y5 cents ; and for the third series of fifty the cost is $3.25. 
The annual expense of the manual training in a Swedish 
country school is about ten to eleven dollars. 

The technical and mechanic art or trade schools of 
Europe, generally, whether public or private, do not 
come within the scope of this work, since their purpose 
is industrial, not educational. 

* "Four young women have graduated from the Slojd Teacher's 
Seminary at Naas, Sweden, and two of them are now engaged in 
teaching manual arts." — Letter from John M. Ordway, A.M., Chair 
of Applied Chemistry and Biology, and Director of Manual Training, 
Tulane University of Louisiana. 

1 "In fine, I have been beloved by the four women whose love was 
of the most comfort to me : My mother, my sister, my wife and my 
daughter. I have had the better part, and it will not be taken from 
me, for I often fancy that the judgments which will be passed upon 
us in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, will be neither more nor less than 
those of women, countersigned by the Almighty." — "Recollections 
of My Youth," p. 306. By Ernest Renan. New York : G. P. Put- 
nam's Sons, 1883. 



370 MIND AND HAND. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

PROGRESS OF THE NEW EDUCATION— 1883-1898. 

Educational Revolution in 1883-4. — Urgent Demand for Reform- 
Existing Scliools Denounced as Superficial, their Methods as Auto- 
matic, their System as a Mixture of Cram and Smatter — The 
Controversy between the School - master of the Old Regime and 
the Reformer — The Leaders of the Movement, Col. Parker, Dr. 
MacAlister, and Others — Followers of Rousseau, Bacon, and 
Spencer — "The End of Man is an Action, not a Thought" — The 
Conservative Teachers Fall into Line — The New Education Be- 
comes an Aggressive Force, Pushing on to Victory — Tiie Physical 
Progress of Manual Training — Its Quality Not Equal to its Ex- 
tent — The New System of Training Confided to Teachers of the 
Old Regime— Ideal Teachers Hard to Find— Teachers Willing to 
Learn Should Be Encouraged — The Effects of Manual Training 
Long Antedate its Introduction to the Schools — Bacon's Definition 
of Education — Stephenson and the Value of Hand-work — Manual 
Training is the Union of Thought and Action — It is the Antithesis 
of the Greek Methods, which Exalted Abstractions and Debased 
Things — The Rule of Coraenius and the Injunction of Rousseau 
— Few Teachers Comprehend Them — The Employment of the 
Hands in the Arts is More Highly Educative than the Acquisi- 
tion of the Rules of Reading and Arithmetic— What the Locomo- 
tive has Accomplished for Man— Education Must be Equal, and 
Social and Political Equality will Follow — The Foundation of 
the New Education is the Baconian Philosophy as Stated by 
Macaulay — Use and Service are the Twin - ministers of Human 
Progress — Definitions of Genius— Attention— Sir Henry Maine — 
Manual Training Relates to all the Arts of Life — Mind and Hand 
— Newton and the Apple — The Sense of Touch Resides in the 
Hand — Robert Seidel on Familiarity with Objects — Material 
Progress the Basis of Spiritual Growth — Plato and the Divine 
Dialogues — Poverty, Society, and the Useful Arts — Selfishness 



PROGRESS OF THE NEW EDUCATION— 1883-1898. 371 

Must Give Way to Altruism — The Struggle of Life — The Progress 
of the Arts and the Final Regeneration of the Race — The Arts 
that Make Life Sweet and Beautiful — The Final Fundamental 
Educational Ideal is Universality— Comenius's Definition of Schools 
— The Workshops of Humanity — That One Man Should Die Igno- 
rant who had Capaciiy for Knowledge is a Tragedy — Mental and 
Manual Exercises to be Rendered Homogeneous in tlie School of 
the Future — '['he Hero of the Ideal School. 

Fifteen years ago a great wave of educational awa- 
kening swept over tliis country. It penetrated every 
nook and corner of the land, pervading both cities, large 
and small, and the rural districts. It tuok the shape of 
a demand, often almost inarticulate, for reform. The 
schools were denounced as superficial ; their methods 
as automatic; their teachers as unintelligent and un- 
trained , their system of instruction as a mixture of 
cram and smatter. 

The school - master is a conservative, and with his 
champions he came promptly to the defence of the old 
schools and their old methods. The controversy became 
heated, and soon the rival forces joined battle. Col. 
Francis W. Parker, of the Chicago Normal School, and 
Dr. James MacAlister, now President of the Drexel 
Institute of Philadelphia, and others were prominent 
leaders of the new reform movement, whose banner was 
"Manual Training," or "The New Education." 

Under this brilliant and enthusiastic leadership the 
movement became a crusade in the interest of the edu- 
cational ideas of Montaigne, Rousseau, Bacon, Locke, 
Comenius, Pestalozzi, Froebel, Spencer, Mann, and their 
long array of sympathizers and supporters, who, with 
Bacon, declare that "the end of man is an action, not a 
thought." 

But the work of the reformers was too serious to be 



372 MIND AND HAND. 

long controlled, either by emotion or passion. The more 
intelligent and better educated and trained teachers 
gradually came to the support of the new system and 
methods, and the mass of tlie teaching fraternity caught 
something of the enthusiasm by wliich the reformers 
were inspired to struggle for a great cause. Tliereafter 
Manual Training became an aggressive force openly de- 
manding recognition, and pushing for victory and ulti- 
mate control. 

In the Appendix hereto the physical progress of Manu- 
al Training is shown in tabulated form; and the extent 
of such progress is all, if not more, than its most ardent 
friends and advocates could rationally desire. But it is 
not to be doubted that the quality of the progress the 
new education has made in the period of fifteen years 
under consideration is far inferior to its extent. The 
statistics here presented relate mainly to the village, 
town, and city schools of this country, and especially to 
its public schools, with some general observations and 
facts in relation to the progress of the new education 
in England and the chief countries in Europe. In a few 
instances tlie tabulations include institutions desio^ned 
for industrial rather than strictly educational purposes. 
But it is deemed wise to retain them, on the ground that 
whether so designed or not all industrial training is 
educative. 

It is worthy of intelligent inquiry whether as a matter 
of fact, not only in this country, but in all countries, the 
progress of Manual Training has not been very unsat- 
isfactory in quality. In most cases the new education 
was necessarily confided to teachers of the old regime, 
who, as a preliminary, were compelled to unlearn what 
was false and erroneous in the old system, to overcome 



PROGRESS OF THE xNEW EDUCATION— 1883-1898. 373 

the prejudices of years, sometimes of a lifetime, and to 
become faitliful and laborious students of a new and 
Bcientilic scheme of education. The main difficulty in 
matters educational has always been to secui'e ideal 
teachers. Education is the first of human considera- 
tions, and its professoi's should be the most learned of 
human beings. If the teachers who have been called to 
the Priesthood, of the New Education, have proved in- 
competent in many instances, instead of being hastily 
condemned they should be helped forward towards the 
goal of competency by all friends of that progress in 
education which is the sole hope of human perfection. 

The most striking effects of Manual Training long 
antedate its introduction to the schools. For thousands 
of years, in every shop where the humble mechanic 
wrought ; at every fireside where the domestic arts ob- 
tained a foothold ; in every field where a step forward 
was made through the invention of some less crude im- 
plement of husbandry than the one that preceded it, the 
mind and the hand expressed their joint struggle tow- 
ards the achievement of that skill in useful things which 
constitutes the very kernel of civilization. Bacon's defi- 
nition of education — "the cultivation of a just and le- 
gitimate familiarity betwixt the mind and things" — is 
a recognition of the philosophic fact that the hand is 
the source of wisdom ; and the life of George Stephen- 
son, the inventor of the locomotive, affords a most im- 
pressive illustration of the educative value of hand- 
work. At the coal-pit's mouth Stephenson, meantime 
learning his "A B C's," invented the "Rocket," while 
the bookish engineers were declaring it to be a mechan- 
ical impossibility. Stephenson's achievement was the 
realization in things of Bacon's luminous precept — "The 



874 MIND AND HAND. 

end of man is an action, not a thouglit." — This is the 
philosophy, the rationale, of Manual Training; it is the 
union of thought and action, and it tlierefore demands 
the elimination from educational methods of the abstract 
philosophy of the Greeks. In his declaration, "All the 
useful arts are degrading," Plato defined the character 
of the revival of learning which was to occur hundreds 
of years afterwards; it was a revival of Greek methods, 
which exalted abstractions, and debased things. Mr. 
Herbert Spencer refers to its baleful effects upon the 
schools of England in the severest terms of condemna- 
tion. That Mr. Spencer's arraignment of the schools is 
just, is shown by its antithesis expressed in the dictum 
of Dr. Dwight, of Yale College, who says: "Education 
is for the purpose of developing and cultivating the 
thinking power. It is to the end of making a knowing, 
thinking mind." 

Bacon discovered, and did not hesitate to declare, that 
"the understanding is more prone to error than the 
senses"; and this fact constitutes the basis of his phi- 
losophy of "things," which is another name for the law 
of induction. " For if we would look into and dissect 
the nature of this real world," he says, "we must consult 
only things themselves." If we w^ould find the corner- 
stone of education, we must consult labor. Nothing 
great is accomplished without a due mingling of drudg- 
ery and humility; for of all the virtues humility is the 
most excellent. The Greeks failed to comprehend the 
true educational idea because of their pride. They as- 
sociated use with slavery, because in Greece all labor 
was performed by slaves; and, scorning labor, they 
scorned use, and, by consequence, service, the greatest 
of the moralities. 



PROGRESS OF THE NEW EDUCATION— 1883-1898. 376 

Upon the foundation laid by Bacon, Rabelais, and 
Montaigne, Comenius, Rousseau, Pestalozzi, and Froe- 
bel raised a great superstructure of educational ideas. 
Words were subordinated, and things ennobled. 

Comenius's rule, to " leave nothing until it has been 
impressed by means of the ear, the eye, the tongue, the 
hand," and the injunction of Rousseau that "the student 
will learn more by one hour of manual labor than he 
will retain from a whole day's verbal instructions ; that 
the things themselves are the best explanations" — these 
are the maxims of the new education. 

But to what extent has the old school-master adopted 
the new education, to what extent occupied the old 
school-room with new ideas? How many school-masters 
of even the present regime comprehend with John Rus- 
kin that "the youth who has once learned to take a 
straight shaving off a plank, or to draw a fine curve 
without faltering, or to lay a brick level in its mortar, 
has learned a multitude of other matters which no lips 
of man could ever teach him?" In other words, to what 
extent does the conviction pervade the ranks of the fra- 
ternity of teachers, whether of public -schools, private 
schools, colleges, or universities, that the employment of 
the hands in the useful arts is more highly educative 
than the acquisition of the rules of reading, writing, and 
arithmetic? Or, considering the subject of the history 
and career of George Stephenson, for instance, what, in 
the opinion of the modern school- master, contributed 
most to his development as a man and citizen of the 
world — the mental exercise of learning to read, write, 
and cipher, wiiicli task he accomplished while engaged 
in inventing the locomotive, or the combined mental 
and manual exercise of taking apart, repairing, and put- 



876 MIND AND HAND. 

ting together the stationary engine used at the colliery 
where he was employed ? If, in the course of our in- 
vestigation, it should be found that doing things as 
Stephenson did is more conducive to intellectual de- 
velopment than memorizing words and reciting poetry, 
as the Greeks did, some light may be thrown on the 
general subject of existing educational methods. Their 
chief defect is their lack of moral power. Morality 
does not reside in the letters of the alphabet, but there 
is in the locomotive, for example, a great moral principle 
— the principle of the brotherhood of man. For, in de- 
vising the locomotive, Stephenson made man's neighbor- 
hood coterminous with earth's utmost bounds ; thus, in 
a single act, achieving his own apotheosis, and assuring, 
ultimately, the moral and intellectual kinship of the 
race. For the hand stands for use, for service, and for 
unyielding integrity; and it may be confidently asserted 
on the conviction of observation, experience, and a stu- 
dious consideration of historic facts, that its drill and 
discipline as enforced in the world's workshops, and in 
the best of existing Manual-training schools, results in a 
far greater degree of mind development than is pro- 
duced by any exclusively academic course, and hence 
that Manual Training is the most important of all 
methods of education. 

The most sacred of human rights is the right of the 
poor child, born in a highly civilized, wealthy commu- 
nity, to the same kind and degree of education as that 
received by the child of the most opulent citizen. 

It was long ago remarked that "the inequalities of 
intellect, like the inequalities of the surface of our globe, 
bear so small a proportion to the mass that in calculat- 
ing its great revolutions they may safely be neglected;" 



PROGRESS OF THE NEW EDUCATION— 1883-1898. 377 

and the late Henry George declared that the differences 
in men, intellectually, are no greater than their physical 
differences. 

Tiie perpetuity of free institutions depends upon 
social not less than upon political equality. But social 
equality is impossible without educational equality: the 
very thought of intimate relations with the ignorant is 
repulsive to the learned. Education, impartial and 
universal, is, therefore, the sole guarantee of an ideal 
civilization, and so of an imperishable state. 

Old social evils constantly recur because the old crime 
of inequality in education is forever and ever repeated. 
It follows that we shall make all things equal through 
equal education. But what sort of education? We shall 
not train the child, as the ancients did, "to dispute in 
learned phrase as to whether w^e can be certain that we 
are certain of nothing!" Nor shall we stuff his memory 
with the grammar and I'hetoric of an ancient tongue, in 
view of the profound ol)servation of Dr. Draper, that a 
living thought can no more be embodied in a dead lan- 
guage than activity can be imparted to a corpse. But 
we shall rather instruct him in the principles of the 
Baconian philosophy, of which Macaulay so aptly says: 
"Its characteristic distinction, its essential spii'it, is its 
majestic humility — the persuasion that nothing can be 
too insignificant for the attention of the wisest w^hich 
is not too insignificant to give pleasure or pain to the 
meanest." 

The end sought in education by the ancients w^as 
ornament, and its strict analogy is found in barbaric 
life. Spencer has pointed out that the savage smeared 
his body with yellow ochre before he covered it with 
clothes, and that he adorned his head with feathers be- 



378 MIND AND HAND. 

fore he built a but. So, under tbe laws of evolution, 
before a Bacon could arise, whole generations of philos- 
ophers were born, lived, speculated, and died, without 
leaving to mankind the smallest heritage of that com- 
mon sense by which we nevertheless live. 

A philosophy which scorned the useful in all its 
aspects was essentially barbaric ; for art differentiates 
civilized from savage life: its law was stagnation, as the 
law of scientific investigation is progress. Use is the 
greatest thing in the material world, as service is the 
greatest thing in the moral world ; and they are ,:nited 
in the philosophy of Bacon, which, beginning in observa- 
tion and ending in art, multiplies useful things that are 
beautiful, and beautiful things that are useful. 

The old education was an outgrowth of the old philoso- 
phy; the new education springs as logically from the 
new, or Baconian, philosophy. The old education was 
ornamental ; the new is scientific, or useful. The old 
education was designed to make masters ; the new is 
designed to make men. 

President Eliot, of Harvard University, admits that 
his method of education is to compel the student to 
work. On the other hand, the method of the new 
education is to attract him. Genius has many defini- 
tions, one of which is "a capacity for taking infinite 
pains." But its humblest equivalent is "attention"; 
and we propose to secure the student's attention through 
his hands: for the most significant fact in all the realm 
of certitude is tlie fact that man impresses himself upon 
nature through the hand alone ! 

Let us then, in the new school, unite mind and hand 
in a crusade after the truths that are hidden in things. 
For Manual Training, educationally, is the blending of 



PROGRESS OF THE NEW EDUCATION— 1883-1898. 379 

tliouffht and action. The thoui^lit that does not lead to 
an act is both mentally and materially barren. For as it 
confers no benefit npon the hntnan race, neither does 
it profit the mind that conceives it. Nay, more. An 
unprolific thought exhausts the mind to no purpose, as 
an unfruitful tree cumbers the ground. It follows that 
the integrity of the mind can be maintained only by the 
submission of its immature judgments to the verification 
of thino^s. Hence the correlation of thouo^hts and thinors 
is as necessary to mental and moral growth as the appli- 
cation of the principles of abstract mechanics to the arts 
of peace is essential to human progress. 

Sir Henry Maine supports this doctrine in a graphic 
paragraph : *' Unchecked by external truth the mind of 
man has a fatal facility for ensnaring and entrapping 
and entangling itself. But happily, happily for the 
human race, some fragment of physical speculation has 
been built into every false system." 

Things are the source of ideas. Action generates 
thought. He who has tools in his hand thinks best as 
well as acts best. The man whose finger is on Nature's 
pulse feels her heart-throbs, and so discovers and utilizes 
her secrets. The men and women who do the world's 
work are better educated than the schoolmen who vainly 
tell them how to do it; and they are better educated 
because they are in closer relationship with things, 
tlirough the supreme sense of touch, which refines and 
spiritualizes the hand — that wonderful member which 
differentiates man from the other animals, and makes 
him their master. 

Manual Training educationally, then, relates to all the 
arts whose sum is the art of living. For whether it be 
the chair on which we sit; or the bed on which we lie; 



380 MIND AND HAND. 

or the garments we wear; or the house that shelters as', 
or tlie railway train on which we cross continents; or 
the ship that takes ns over seas; or the unspeakable mar- 
vels of the world's museums and galleries upon w^hich 
we gaze with rapture; or the orchestra of an hundred 
instruments, whose music enchants us; or the treasures 
of dead cities — long buried — now unearthed ; or the tem- 
ples in which we woi'ship ; or the monuments which 
commemorate our heroes and martyrs; or the tombs in 
which we moulder away to dust — they are all the work 
of the hand ! 

Manual Training is the acquisition by the hand of the 
arts through which man expresses himself in things. 
It is a series of educational genei'alizations in things. 
The purpose of it is to put the mind and hand en rapj)ort 
with each other; to make the hand acquainted with the 
elementar}^ manipulations of the typical arts, by actual 
exercises, as the njind is familiarized with the funda- 
mental principles of the sciences by studying their laws. 

Superior observation is only another name for genius. 
To the dull eye the falling apple taught no lesson, but 
to Newton's quick apprehension it revealed the la^v of 
gravitation ! 

It is not alone, however, in the sense of sight that 
observation resides; nor is it keenest there. We have 
recently learned the value of object teaching; but we 
have yet to learn, popularly and practically, what has 
long been known to science — that the sense of touch is 
the master sense, whence all the other senses spring. 
It is because of this fact, and of the further fact that 
the sense of touch is most highly developed in the hand, 
that man is the wisest of animals. 

It follows that more than in the sense of seeing, hear- 



PROGRESS OF THE NEW EDUCATION— 1883-1898. 381 

ing, tasting, or smelling — nay, more than in all these 
senses combined — tlie faculty of observation resides in 
the hand. 

Dr. Wilson declares that touch "reigns throughout 
the body, and is the token of life in every part"; and 
Dr. Maudsley says: "It is tlie fundamental sense, the 
mother-tongue of language." 

How apt is this definition of the sense of touch — "the 
token of life in every part" — and how comprehensive 
this — "the mother-tongue of language!" And of this 
master sense the hand is the chief organ and minister. 
How versatile it is; wliat adaptability it possesses; what 
helpfulness ! In the moment of danger how reassuring its 
supporting grasp ; how consoling its gentle touch when 
grief overwhelms ! In defeat how it trembles with 
emotion, and how tense with exaltation it becomes in 
the hour of victory! With what infinite loathing it 
shrinks from a hated contact, and with what sympa- 
thetic vibrations of ardor responds to the clinging press- 
ure of love ! 

If we would become familiar with objects we must 
subject them to the test of touch, we must handle them. 
As Robert Seidel, a great teacher, well says: " We must 
stretch them, beat them, cool them, expose them to the 
sun, the water, the air — we must work them." 

It is through these processes of loving manipulation 
that the mechanic and tlie artisan transform things crude 
and ugly into forms of use and beauty. And it is in this 
way, and this way only, that man has trod the path of 
progress. It is a rugged road, whose steeps are to be 
climbed alone by those whose hearts are warm with holy 
zeal, whose souls are aglow with enthusiasm, and whose 
hands are endowed with the rich experiences of thought- 



382 MIND AND HAND. 

fnl toil. And we sliall fit all mankind for this noble 
task by training them to nsefiilness — that is, by teaching 
them, not merely how to think, but how to act, liow to 
work. 

It is a broad and conclusive generalization of Herbert 
Spencer that since literature and the fine arts are made 
possible by the useful arts, manifestly that which is made 
possible must be postponed to that which makes it possi- 
ble. Nor does this rational and sober view of art detract 
in the least from its dignity or sentiment. On the con- 
trary, it provides a foundation for works of the imagina- 
tion — a basis for tliat spirituality which is the fruit of the 
happy conjunction of a multitude of material conditions 
evolved from the humblest as well as the noblest of the 
useful arts — a basis without which the beautiful arts 
could never exist. 

It thus becomes plain that social and economic condi- 
tions are the product of education in things. Art edu- 
cation differentiates the civilized from the savage man. 
The pathway of progress which now blazes with the 
glory of electricity stretches back to the gloom of the 
caves where our early ancestors dwelt; and the steps of 
this advance consist of improvements in the useful and 
beautiful arts. From gesture to speech ; from pictures 
to types; from the canoe to the steamship, and from the 
canal to the locomotive, the race has moved forward, 
always and only, through art triumphs. 

So all the generations of men have lived and toiled 
for us. We are the heirs of the hoarded learning, of the 
accumulated mental and moral fibre, and of the treasured 
arts of the ages. And we are hence the elders, as Bacon 
says, of the philosophers, the sages, and the inventors 
and discoverers of all time. Their achievements are 



PROGRESS OF THE NEW EDUCATION— 1883-1898. 383 

heights whence we may discern and occupy new and 
wider fields of liiunan endeavor. 

The precise relation of the useful arts to social and 
economic conditions is, therefore, that of creator. As 
your art education is, so shall your society be. There 
are persons who unconsciously dissociate art and civiliza- 
tion — who think that things are not essential to spiritual 
development, wlio fail to realize the fact that the main 
reason of the barbaric character of the savage is the 
absence from his environment of the arts of peace and 
plenty. If, for example, Plato had not been provided 
vyith food and clothing and shelter, he would doubtless 
not have composed the divine dialogues ; and if there 
had been neither mechanics, nor architects, nor sculptors 
to adorn with palaces and temples the Greek cities, his 
ideal republic would not have had a place in classic 
literature; and finally, if there had been no (slave) hand- 
workers in Greece (for art products are all, directly 
or indirectl}^, the work of the hand), instead of being 
the most venerated of philosophers, Plato might have 
been, perhaps, the most wretched of savages, prolong- 
ing a miserable existence by means the most inglorious. 
But so unconscious was he of the true relation of the 
useful arts to life that he denounced them all as "de- 
grading"! 

Poverty is the chief scourge of society ; and it is a 
familiar economic fact that where the useful arts are 
most flourishing poverty is least pressing, so that to 
abolish poverty it would seem to be only necessary to 
multiply and extend the arts. And if poverty is to be 
abolished ; if there is ever to be an ideal civilization, the 
controlling motive of humanity must be changed from 
selfishness to altruism ; and this change can come only 



884 MIND AND HAND. 

through love of work. So long as work shall be regarded 
as a "curse," the paramount purpose of the individual 
will be to avoid it, and to compel others to submit to it. 
Hence the antagonisms that arise at every point of human 
contact. The sum of these antagonisms is what we call 
the struggle of life, which is merely the struggle of each 
to survive at the expense of his fellows, and is therefore 
barbaric. 

Now as we have seen that it is through the arts that 
man has been civilized — that, in a word, the arts differen- 
tiate the civilized from the savage man^ — it is evident that 
the further regeneration of the race is to be wrought by 
analogous means — that is to say, by a wider expansion of 
the arts of peace. And the way to achieve this result is 
to transform our schools, which were modelled after the 
classic methods of Greece and Rome, into laboratories 
for the development of useful men and women, through 
the mastery of the useful arts; the arts that make life 
sweet and beautiful; the arts that adorn our homes, that 
render the earth fertile and make it blossom as the rose ; 
the arts that annihilate distance and so promote man's 
brotherhood l)y enlarging his neighborhood — these are 
the arts that inspire us with just and generous impulses, 
the arts in which the noblest moral sentiments are made 
manifest in things. 

These, then, are the arts which ought to be made the 
subject of thorough and exhaustive education — the arts 
that led Comenius to define schools as the workshops of 
humanity. The final essential educational condition is 
universality; for it is obvious that inequality of educa- 
tional opportunity is the grossest injustice of which organ- 
ized society is capable. It is against this injustice that 
Carlyle exclaims : " That there should one man die 



PROGRESS OF THE NEW EDUCATION— 1883-1898. 886 

ignorant, who had capacity for knowledge, this I call a 
tragedy, were it to happen more than twenty times in 
the minute." 

This is indeed the tragedy of tragedies — the tragedy 
on the heels of which slavery stalks ; in whose train 
caste rides in scornful state ; in whose hideous shadow 
war waits to shed blood and spread pestilence and famine. 
All these are the satellites of ignorance, and hardly less 
of partial education than of total unenlightenment; and 
hence the only hope that civilization shall finally triumph 
over barbarism rests in universal, impartial, and scientific 
education. 

The contrasts between the old and the new school 
methods pointed out in this chapter show along what 
lines educational progress is to be sought. The ideal 
school is to consist, not of one academic department, 
and a department of Manual Training, but of mental 
and manual exercises so related as to produce homo- 
geneity. 

The tabulations of facts which will be found in the 
Appendix show that a vast number of schools have been 
dedicated to the new education. If they are to be devel- 
oped into ideal schools thousands of ideal teachers must 
devote themselves to the arduous task. Each school 
transformed from the dull routine of mediocrity to the 
vigor and elasticity which wait on development will cost 
the life of a hero. The school that has no hero to struggle 
for its salvation will surely languish and die. Every 
great school of the future must therefore have its hero, 
for it is only the hero who toils without thought of re- 
ward. As Carlyle so w^ell says : " The wages of every 
noble work do yet lie in heaven or else nowhere." And 
he has left this message of advice and encouragement to 

25 



886 MIND AND HAND. 

the hero of the school of the future which is to revolu- 
tionize the world: "Thou wilt never sell thy life in a 
satisfactory manner. Give it like a royal heart; let the 
price be nothing ; thou hast then, in a certain sense, got 
all for it 1" 



APPENDIX 



STATISTICS.— MANUAL TRAINING, 1888-1898, IN 
THE UNITED STATES 

MANUAL TRAINING IN PUBLIC HIGH-SCHOOLS 



Name of School 



City or Town 


State 


Peru 


111. 


Baltimore 


Md. 


Eau Claire 


Wis. 


Philadelphia 


Penn. 


Indianapolis 


Ind. 


Rochester 


N. Y 


Toledo 


Ohio 


Cleveland 


Ohio 


AVashington 


. D.C. 


New Haven 


Conn. 


Springfield 


Mass. 


Minneapolis 


Minn. 


Newburg 


N. Y. 


Galesburg 


111. 


St. Paul 


Minn. 


Stillwater 


Minn. 


Jamestown 


NY. 


Easton 


Del. 


Eiiston 


Md. 


Cambridge 


Mass. 


Concord 


N. H. 


Orange 


N.J. 


Albany 


N. Y. 


Pueblo 


Col. 


Davenport 


Iowa 


Des Moines 


Iowa 


Fall River 


Mass. 



bo 








'5'§ 


ol 






H = 


2H 












H 


s 


S 


1883 


2 


1883 


16 


1884 


1 


1885 


13 


1885 


10 


1885 




1885 


11 


1885 


4 


1886 




1886 


13 


1886 


3 


1886 


4 


1886 


2 


1887 


1 


1887 


5 


1887 


1 


1887 


1 


1888 




1888 




1888 


9 


1888 


4 


1888 


3 


1888 


3 


1889 


1 


1889 


1 


1889 


1 


1889 


1 


1889 


2 


1889 




1889 


3 


1889 


4 


1890 


17 


1890 


13 


1890 


1 


1890 


2 


1890 


1 


1890 


3 



=^2 

n 



High school 

Polytechnic High-school. 

High -school 

Central Mnniial-training School., 

Industrial Training High-school 

Rochester Free Academy 

Higli-school 

Central .Manual-training School 

Central High-school 

Manual training High school 

Manual-training School 

High-school 

Newburg Free Academy 

Manual training School 

High-.school 

Manual training High-school 

High school 

Central High-school 

High school 

Ridge Manual training School 

High-school 

Orange High-school 

High-school 

Dist. 20 Central H i<;h-school 

Manual-training High-school 

West Des Mo'.nes High-school 

Manual training High school 

High school 

High school 

High-school 

High school 

English High and Manual-training School 

Manual training High-school 

Approved High-.school 

High-school 

High school 

West Manual-training School 



Duluth 

Omaha 

Union 

Westchester 

Chicago 

Louisville 

Vineland 

Passaic 

South Orange 

Cleveland 



Minn. 

Neb. 

N. J. 

Penn. 

111. 

Ky. 

N.J. 

N.J. 

N.J. 

Ohio 



41 
674 

50 
406 
676 
908 
394 
200 
235 

34 
375 
133 

74 
350 

12 



178 

52 

180 

750 

160 

82 

50 

62 

80 

100 

200 

240 

430 

212 

150 

53 

150 

100 



388 



APPENDIX 



MANUAL TRAINING IN PUBLIC HIGH. ^GROOLS. — Continued. 



Name of School 



Eiist and West High-schools 

Norwich Free Academy 

High-school 

High-school 

Moline High-school 

Mauual-traiuing High-school 

High-school 

Ridgewood High-school 

Manual-training High-school 

Manual training High-school 

High-school 

High school 

Willard Hall High-school.... 

Fremont Manual-training School . . . 
North East Manual- training School. 

High-school 

Manual-training High-school 

High-school 

Poly technical High-school 

Manual-training High-school 

High school 

High school 

East Orange High-school 

Manual-training High-school 

High-school 

Mechanics Arts High school 

Manual-training High school 

Washington High-school 

Townsend Industrial School . : 

Ryan High-school 

Manual-training School 

English H'gh-school 

English and Classical High-school. . . 

High-school 

English High-school 

High-school 

Royen High-school 

High-scliool 

High school 

High-school 

High-school 

High-school 

Brookline High-school 

High school 

High-school 

Hackley Manual-training School 

Ishpeming Manual- training School. . 
Menominee Manual-training School. 

High school 

Barlow School of Industrial Art 

High-school 

High-school 

Cross Creek School 

High school 

High-school 



City or Town 



Milwaukee 

Norwich 

Waterbury 

Springfield 

Moline 

VValtham 

Bay City 

Ridgewood 

Camden 

Seattle 

Menominee 

Bristol 

Wilmington 

Fremont 

Philadelphia 

Norristown 

Providence 

Spokane 

San Francisco 

Mason City 

Manchester 

Atlantic City 

East Orange 

Denver 

Frankfort 

Boston 

Brooklyn 

Washington 

Newport 

Appleton 

Lowell 

Somerville 

Worcester 

Medford 

Lynn 

Lawrence 

Youngs to w^n 

Fitchburg 

Burlington 

Los Angeles 

Rockford 

Florence 

Brookline 

Janesville 

Maiden 

Muskegon 

Ishpeming 

Menominee 

Summit 

Binghamton 

Syracuse 

Akron 

Washington 

Waupaca 

Winnetka 



Wis. 

Conn. 

Conn. 

III. 

111. 

Mass. 

Mich. 

N.J. 

N.J. 

Wash. 

Wis. 

Conn. 

Del. 

Ohio 

Penn. 

Penn. 

R. I. 

Wash. 

Cal. 

Iowa 

N. H. 

N.J. 

N.J. 

Col. 

Ky. 

Mass. 

N. Y. 

Penn. 

R. I. 

Wis. 

Mass. 

Mass. 

Mass. 

Mass. 

Mass. 

Mass. 

Ohio 

Mass. 

Wis. 

Cal. 

111. 

Wis. 

Mass. 

Wis. 

Mass. 

Mich. 

Mich. 

Mich. 

N.J. 

N. Y. 

N. Y. 

Ohio 

Penn. 

Wis. 

111. 



bD 


so 










.= £ 


o a 


?^1^ 


S £ 




^H 


m 






H^ 


s 


s 


1890 


4 


1891 


1 


1891 


1 


1891 


1 


1891 


1 


1891 


2 


1891 


* 


1891 


3 


1891 


3 


1891 


2 


1891 


5 


1892 


1 


1892 


3 


1892 


1 


1892 


9 


1892 


2 


1892 


18 


1892 


3 


1893 


4 


1893 


1 


1893 


1 


1893 


1 


1893 


3 


1894 




1894 


2 


1894 


11 


1894 




1894 




1894 


2 


1894 


1 


1895 


2 


1895 


2 


1895 


4 


1895 


2 


1895 


3 


1895 


1 


1895 


1 


1895 




1896 




1896 


6 


1896 


1 


1896 


2 


1896 


1 


1896 




1896 


2 


1896 


4 


1896 


1 


1896 


1 


189:; 


1 


1896 


3 


1896 




1896 


2 


1896 




1897 


1 


1897 


1 



* Abandoned temporarily for want of funds. 



APPENDIX 



389 



MANUAL TRAINING IN PUBLIC HIGH-SCHOOLS.— Co^i^mwed 



Name op School 


City or Town 


State 


n 


.1 

H 


be 

bc = 
.= a 
•^ '5 

— "? 


High-school 


Fond du I.ac 

Kansas City 

Oshkosh 

Buffalo 

Mayville 

Red Bank 

Hartford 

Newark 

Wilmington 

Iowa City 

Brockton 

South Omaha 

Stamford 


Wis. 
- Mo. 
Wis. 
N.Y. 
Wis. 
N. .T. 
Conn. 
N.J. 
Del. 
Iowa 
Mass. 
Neh. 
Conn. 


1897 
1897 
1897 
1897 
1897 
1897 
1898 
1898 

* 

* 

* 

* 


1 

27 
3 

1 
1 
1 
4 

i 


50 




800 


H igh-school 


250 


Central and Martin Park High-schools . .. 
High-school 


50 
30 


High-School . 


375 


High-school 


140 






Howard School 


45 


High-school 




High-school 




High-school . ... 














101 Cities 


23 States 




320 


15,942 



* Date of establishment not reported. 



MANUAL TRAINING IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS— GRAMMAR GRADES 



City or Town 




Montclair. . . 

Peru 

New Haven. 
Jamestown . 
Eau Claire. . 
Waltham... 
Rochester . . 

Toledo 

Washington. 
Springfield.. 

Boston 

Newburg . . . 

Tidioute 

Beardstown. 

Easton 

Brookline. .. 
Winchester. 

Concord 

Hoboken . . , 

Orange 

New York . 
Meadville. . 
Wilmington 



N.J. 

111. 

Conn. 

N.Y. 

Wis. 



t* s 






a a^ 


^■o 




.5-og 


^- 


o c 




J* o 




H-S? 


Sk 


<s El 


-ssi 


^^ 




jli 


II 


^1 


1882 


All 


4 


1883 


2 


2 


1884 






1884 


2 


2 


1884 


1 




1885 


1 


2 


1885 






1885 


11 


11 


1886 


40 


43 


1886 


1 


3 


1886 


All 


81 


1886 


1 


2 


1886 






1887 


1 


2 


1888 






1888 


1 


2 


1888 


1 


2 


1888 


2 


4 


1888 


6 


6 


1888 


5 


3 


1888 


37 


32 


' 1888 




2 


, 1889 


i 





Hh 



800 

100 

425 

336 

2,257 

9,452 

267 

37,240 

95 



525 
408 
402 
1,229 
842 
10.187 



45 



390 



APPENDIX 



MANUAL TRAINING IN PUBLIC SGROOLS.— Continued. 



City or Town 



Davenport . • ■ Iowa 



Vineland 

Union 

St. Louis 

Duluth 

Passaic 

Garfield 

Paterson 

Ridgewood . . 
Knoxville .... 
South Orange 
Waterbury. . . 

Springfield III. 

Moline 111. 

Salem Mass. 

Northampton Mass. 

Bay City Mich. 

San Francisco Cal. 

St. Paul Minn. 

Camden N J. 

Norristown Penn. 

Providence . . R I. 

Menominee ... Wis. 

Bristol Conn. 

Haverhill Mass. 

Manistee Mich. 

Minneapolis Minn. 

St. Cloud Minn, 

Manchester , N. H. 

Bayonne N. J. 

East Orange N. J. 

Cleveland Ohio 

Newport R. I. 

Staunton Va. 

Santa Barbara Cal 

San Diego Cal. 

Portland Maine 

Medford Mass. 

New Bedford Mass. 

Ithaca N Y. 

Mason City Iowa 

Denver Colo. 

Chicago Ill 

Cape May N J. 

Fitchburg Mass. 

Buffalo '. NY 

Pittsburg Penn. 

Barbadoes Township , ^ N. J. 

Woonsocket i R. I. 

Oakland i Cal. 

Carlstadt ' N. J. 

Los Angeles ; Cal. 

Summit N. J. 

Hartford Conn. 

Des Moines ' Iowa 



N J 
X J 

Mo. 

Minn. 

N. .J. 

N J. 

N.J. 

N.J. 

Tenn. 

N.J, 

Conn. 



!=0 S 




he 


.5.S-S 


go 


(« = 


.5^2 


c^ 


o a 


2^c= 


k^ 


2S 








"^ — S 


^s 


1"^ 


,11 i 


II 


=2§ 


<5 o 


CO- 




1889 


1 


1 


1889 


All 


1 


1889 


All 


All 


1890 


1* 


8* 


1890 


12 


25 


1890 




2 


1890 


1 


2 


1890 


1 


1 


1890 




4 


1890 






1890 


1 


1 


1891 






1891 


1 


1 


1891 


1 


1 


1891 


1 


1 


1891 


1 


1 


1891 


t 


t 


1892 


3 


2 


1892 




4 


1892 




4 


1892 


2 


3 


1892 


13 




1892 


2 


4 


1893 


2 




1893 


1 


1 


1893 






1893 


5 


5 


1893 


1 


1 


1893 


All 


1 


1893 


All 


All 


1893 


All 


2 


1893 


2 


1 


1893 




4 


1893 




1 


1894 


1 


2 


1894 


5 


1 


1894 


1 


3 


1894 


1 


2 


1894 


1 


1 


1894 


2 


2 


1894 


1 


1 


1895 


All 




1895 


28 


32 


1895 


All 


3 


1895 






1895 




i 


1895 


3 


2 


1895 


3 


3 


1895 




1 


189fi 


1 


1 


1896 


All 


5 


1896 


7 




1896 


3 


3 


1896 


All 


5 


1896 


2 


2 



* Colored School. 



t Abandoned temporarily for want of funds. 



APPENDIX 



391 



MANUAL TRAINING IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS.— Coritinued. 



City or Town 



Florence 

Menominee 

Brooklyn 

Glens Falls 

Utica 

Akron 

Washington 

I'lieblo Dist. No. 1 

Winnetka 

Oshkosh 

Indianapolis 

North Adams 

Lynn 

Newton , . 

Worcester 

Cambridge 

Muskegon 

Kansas City 

Newark 

Milwaukee 

Fueblo Dist. No. 20 

New Britain 

Peahody 

Moberly 

Stockton 

Santa Cruz 

Manchester 

Stamford 

Iowa City 

Augusta 

Baltimore 

Hyde Park 

Holyoke 

Easton 

Fall River..... 

Dedham 

Maiden 

Milton 

Waterbury 

Wellesley 

Canton 

Richmond 

119 Cities 





^ s 








S5§ 


So 


a 




.5^2 


= n 


C 3 


State 




^.^ 






"^ — 2 




"5 




3 5s 
i^2 


11 


^§ 






^- 


•* 


Wis. 


1896 






Mich. 


1896 




1 


N.y. 


1896 






N.Y. 


1896 




1 


N.Y. 


1896 




4 


Ohio 


1896 




2 


Penn. 


1896 




3 


Colo. 


1897 




2 


111. 


1897 




1 


Wis. 


1897 


25 


28 


Ind. 


1897 




2 


Mass. 


1897 




1 


Mass. 


1897 




1 


Mass. 


1897 




1 


Mass. 


1897 




2 


Mass. 


1897 




2 


Mich. 


1897 






Mo. 


1897 






N.J. 


1897 


• • 




Wis. 


1897 






Colo. 


1898 






Conn. 


1898 






Mass. 


1898 






Mo. 


1898 






Cal. 


* 






Cal. 


* 






Conn. 


* 






Conn. 


* 






Iowa 


* 






Me. 


* 






Md. 


* 


All 




Mass. 


* 






Mass. 


* 






Mass. 


* 






Mass. 


* 






Mass. 


* 






Mass. 


* 






Mass 


* 






Mass. 


* 






Mass 


* 






Mass. 


* 






Va. 


* 






24 States 




287 


444 



boa 
.5 a 



a.3 
s a 



2,300 

210 

112 

180 

48 

1,400 

1,000 

247 

351 

135 



700 

2,265 

15 

300 

190 



All 
204 



118,885 



Date of establishment not reported. 



392 



APPENDIX 



MANUAL TRAINING IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS— PRIMARY GRADES 



City or Town* 



Montclair 

JamestowD 

Baltimore 

"Washington 

Newburg 

Tidioute 

Oakland 

Springfield 

Concord , 

Orange 

New York 

Union 

Vineland 

Westchester 

Garfield 

South Orange 

Waterbury 

Moline 

Northampton 

Ridgewood 

San Francisco . . . 

St. Paul 

Camden 

Providence 

Bristol 

Minneapolis 

Stillwater 

Cleveland 

Staunton 

Menominee 

St. Cloud 

Philipsburg 

Elyria 

Newport 

Denver 

Oshkosh 

Waltham 

Carlstadt 

Utica 

Akron 

San Diego 

Newark 

Indianapolis 

Moberly 

Passaic 

Pueblo Dist. No. 1 





^flS 


^g 


W) 


^^ 


















S2 


11 


State 


H:i>. 




«H 


E^H 




153 rt 


^-5^ 


l-s 


— "cS 




= l.s 


^■^s 


^^ 


3 a 














S f^ 


S^ 


m 


S 


N.J. 


1882 


All 


All 


1,047 


N. Y. 


1882 


All 


All 


2,400 


Md. 


1884 








D. C. 


1886 


55 




12,900 


N. Y. 


1886 








Penn. 


1886 








Cal. 


1888 




2 


2,159 


Mass. 


1888 


All 




29,256 


N. H. 


1888 








N.J. 


1888 


4 


3 


2,132 


N. Y. 


1888 






12,000 


N.J. 


1889 


All 


Ail 


560 


N.J. 


1889 


All 


1 


700 


Penn. 


1889 




1 




N.J. 


1890 


.. 


1 


200 


N.J. 


1890 


1 


1 


200 


Conn. 


1891 




1 




111. 


1891 








Mass. 


1891 




1 


900 


N.J. 


1891 




3 


200 


Cal. 


1892 


1 


1 


176 


Minn. 


1892 


40 




4,500 


N.J. 


1892 






3,080 


R. I. 


1892 


50 






Conn. 


1893 


2 


2 


144 


Minn. 


1893 


44 




4,446 


Minn. 


1893 








Ohio 


1893 






3,500 


Va. 


1893 




i 


200 


Wis. 


1893 




2 


200 


Minn. 


1894 




2 


488 


N.J. 


1894 


All 


All 


700 


Ohio 


1894 


All 


All 


700 


R.I. 


1894 




2 


101 


Colo. 


1895 








Wis. 


1896 


20 


25 


800 


Mass. 


1896 






100 


N.J. 


1896 


All 


5 




N. Y. 


1896 








Ohio 


1896 


All 


All 


1,800 


Cal. 


1897 


5 


3 


250 


N.J. 


1897 




. 




Ind. 


1897 




2 


500 


Mo. 


1897 








N.J. 


1897 




1 


375 


Colo. 


1898 




1 


180 



* Of the 51 cities tabulated, only 9 report the number of separate primary schools in 
which Manual Training is taught. These 9 cities report 202 schools, or an average of 
22.4 schools per city. Nine cities report all. Thirty-four cities do not report. If the 
average obtained from the cities reporting cnn be applied to all, then 1120 primary 
schools have Manual Training. Thirty-one cities do not report the number of teachers. 
Twenty cities report 34. Applying, the above method shows 85 teachers of Manual Train- 
ing in primary schools. It must be remembered that there are special or supervising 
teachers; the regular teachers doing most of this work under supervision. Thirty-two 
cities report 87,598 pupils taking Primary Manual Training ; or 2737 on the average to 
each city reporting. Applying this average to the 51 cities reporting, the total is 139,587. 



APPENDIX 



393 



MANUAL TRAINING IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS— Continned. 



City or Town 


State 


HI 




a 
■on 

^^ 


.a a 

SI 

'B. = 
~ a 

^1 




Cal. 

111. 

Me. 

Mich. 

Ohio 

Penn. 

Penn. 

Wis. 






'i 




Elgin 




Augusta 




Detroit 








Pittsburg . - - 










La Crosse . 










54 Cities 


20 States 




222 


62 


88,398 



KINDERGARTENS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS 



City or Town 



St. Louis 

Milwaukee 

Cedar Rapids 

Newport 

Lowell 

Pawtucket 

La Porte 

Muskegon 

Philadelphia 

Traverse City. .. 

San Jose 

Augusta 

Des Moines 

Marshalltown.. .. 

Louisville 

Albany 

Boston 

Brookline 

Rochester 

Sheboygan 

Bristol 

Richmond 

Cambridge 

Grand Rapids... 

Montclair 

Louisburg 

North Tonawand 

Norwich 

Lexington 

Grand Haven ... 

Garfield 

East Orange 

South Orange . . . 
Providence 





o^ 


03 


a 


g 






0) 2 
















j?"^ 






cS "^ 


State 


^1 


II 


II 








oja 


-.S H 






fc^K 


W 


M 


W 


Mo. 


1873 


60 


400 


7,G94 


Wis. 


1880 


42 


83 


3.816 


Iowa 


1881 


12 


16 


766 


R. I. 


1882 


4 


8 


250 


Mass. 


1883 


12 


25 


400 


R. I. 


1883 


4 


9 


295 


Ind. 


1884 


3 


5 


163 


Mich. 


1884 


8 


10 


581 


Penn. 


1884 


135 


180 


6,500 


Mich. 


1885 


4 


4 


180 


Cal. 


1885 


7 


17 


337 


Ga. 


1887 


4 


8 


183 


Iowa 


1887 


14 


28 


807 


Iowa 


1887 


7 


10 


260 


Ky. 


1887 


10 


59 


750 


N. Y. 


1887 


19 


30 


750 


Mass. 


1888 


67 


126 


3,925 


Mass. 


1888 


11 


18 


373 


N. Y. 


1888 


13 


68 


1,972 


Wis. 


1888 


9 


27 


980 


Conn. 


1889 


3 


7 


253 


Ind. 


1889 


2 


2 


75 


Mass. 


1889 


11 


22 


583 


Mich. 


1889 


8 


7 


352 


N. J. 


1889 


5 


12 


273 


N. Y. 


1889 


5 


10 


165 


N. Y. 


1889 


4 


4 


200 


Conn. 


1890 


3 


7 


120 


Ky. 


1890 


5 


10 


360 


Mich. 


1890 


1 


3 


105 


N. J. 


1890 


2 


2 


80 


N.J. 


1890 


6 


6 


180 


N. J. 


1890 


1 


2 


55 


R. I. 


1890 


15 


31 


700 



394 



APPENDIX 



KINDERGARTENS IN 


PUBLIC 


SCHOOLS— Continued. 




CiTT OR Town 


State 


II 

S CO 


ll 


1. 
II 


It 


Los Angeles 


Cal. 

Ky- 

Ky. 

Mass. 

Mich. 

Mich. 

Mich. 

N. H. 

N. J. 

Conn. 

Jnd. 

Mass. 

Mass. 

Minn. 

Neb. 

N. J. 

N. Y. 

N. Y. 

N. Y. 

Cal. 

Colo. 

111. 

Mass. 

Neb. 

Mich. 

Mo. 

N. J. 

N. J. 

N. Y. 

N. Y. 

N. Y. 

Tex. 

Vt. 

Wis. 

Wis. 

Ind. 

Iowa 

Iowa 

Mass. 

Mass. 

Mass. 

Wis. 

Mass. 

Mich. 

Minn. 

Miss. 

N. H. 

N. Y. 

N. Y. 

N. Y. 

Penn. 

Wis. 

Wis. 

Wis. 

Cal. 

Ind. 

Iowa 

Mass. 


1891 
1891 
1891 
1891 
1891 
1891 
1891 
1891 
1891 
1892 
1892 
1892 
1892 
1892 
1892 
1892 
1892 
1892 
1892 
1893 
1893 
1893 
1893 
1893 
1893 
1893 
1893 
1893 
1893 
1893 
1893 
1893 
1893 
1893 
1894 
1894 
1894 
1894 
1894 
1894 
1894 
1894 
1894 
1894 
1894 
1894 
1894 
1894 
1894 
1894 
1894 
1894 
1894 
1894 
1895 
]895 
1895 
1895 


29 

5 

1 

5 

11 

3 

2 

5 

6 

1 

16 

10 

12 

16 

26 

5 

11 

2 

4 

6 

25 

51 

13 

8 

5 

5 

1 

2 

9 

3 

5 

1 

4 

6 

5 

1 

5 

3 

8 

3 

4 

5 

1 

4 

8 

1 

4 

13 

, 4 

3 

2 

5 

3 

2 

1 

7 

5 

3 


78 
10 
2 
11 
11 
9 
2 
7 
8 
1 

11 

19 

26 

27 

40 

5 

26 

4 

6 

6 

50 

121 

29 

22 

5 

5 

2 

3 

24 

4 

7 

3 

8 

11 

11 

2 

5 

6 

17 

6 

8 

11 

2 

4 

13 

1 

6 

14 

5 

3 

2 

5 

3 

6 

1 

7 

10 

6 


1,800 


Covington 


Frankfort 


50 


Somerville 


Iron Mountain 


586 

290 

78 

288 

284 

52 

435 

518 

900 

1,000 

1,600 

230 

750 

127 

156 


Ironvvood 


Negaunee 


Concord 


Passaic 


Greenwich » 


Terre Haute 


Worcester 


Lowell 


Duluth 


Omaha ; 


Plainfleld 


Utica 


Cohoes 


Niagara Falls . . , - 


San Diego 


250 
2,534 
2,500 
569 
700 
350 


Denver 


Chicago 


Newton 


Lincoln 


Menominee 


Kansas City 


200 

75 


Ridgewood 


Union 


120 
500 
60 


Saratoga Springs 


Flushing 


New Rochelle 


476 


El Paso 


100 


Burlington 


137 


Racine 


573 


Fond du Lac 


250 


Hammond 


80 


Osknloosa 


210 


Sioux City 


125 


Springfield 


346 


Peabody 


126 


Medford 


220 


Superior 


225 


Lawrence 


36 


Escanaba 


225 


Winona 


400 


Natchez 


50 


Portsmouth 


180 


Binghamton 


600 


Geneva 


150 


Sing Sing 


91 


AVilkesbarre 


80 


Marinette 


300 


La Crosse 


150 


Madison 


134 


Oakland 


60 


Jeflersonvilie 


200 


Burlington 


200 


North Adams 


120 







APPENDIX 



895 



KINDERGARTENS IN PUBLIC QGEOOL^^ Concluded. 



City or Town 



State 



Vicksburg 

Fremont 

Oshkosh .. . . . 

Winnetka 

Indianapolis ... 

Dubuque , 

Maiden 

Northampton.. . 

Ishpeming 

Detroit 

Nashua 

Syrncuse 

Mt. Vernon 

Cleveland 

Stevens Point. . 

New Bedford 

Walden 

Newark 

Hoboken 

Bayonne 

Brooklyn 

Woonsockel 

Pueblo 

Akron 

Seattle 

Appleton 

Anniston , 

Hot Springs 

Sacramento 

Santa Cruz 

Manchester 

New Britain 

New Haven 

Hartford 

Norwalk 

Rockville 

Wiilimantic 

Rome 

Evanston 

Augusta 

Portland 

Fall River 

Sault Ste. Marie. 

St. Paul 

Trenton 

Paterson 

t Buffalo 

Gloversville 

New York 

Schenectady.. . . . 

Newark 

Pittsburg 

Oil City 

Allegheny 



146 Cities 



Miss. 

Ohio 

Wis. 

111. 

Ind. 

Iowa 

Mass. 

Mass. 

Mich. 

Mich. 

N. H. 

N. Y. 

N. Y. 

Ohio 

Wis. 

Mass. 

Mass. 

N. J. 

N. J. 

N.J. 

N. Y. 

R. I. 

Colo. 

Ohio 

\Vash. 

Wis. 

Ala. 

Ark. 

Cal. 

Cal. 

Conn. 

Conn. 

Conn. 

Conn. 

Conn. 

Conn. 

Conn. 

Ga. 

111. 

Me. 

Me. 

Mass. 

Mich. 

Minn. 

N. J. 

N. J. 

N. Y. 

N. Y. 

N. Y. 

N. Y. 

Ohio 

Penn. 

Penn. 

Penn. 



1895 
1895 
1895 
1896 
1896 
1896 
1896 
1896 
1896 
1896 
1896 
1896 
1896 
1896 
1896 
1897 
1897 
1897 
1897 
1897 
1897 
1897 
1898 
1898 
1898 



5 

5 

25 

5 

1 

8 

5 

4 

6 

12 

4 

4 

2 

24 

5 

6 

2 

50 

15 

* 

28 

2 

2 

3 

2 

8 

i 

8 

2 

8 

13 

19 

138 



1,202 



180 

160 

800 

57 

53 

232 

85 

90 

300 

91 

120 

97 

30 

500 

180 

140 

40 

2,100 



30 

65 

30 

51 

200 

122 

16 

172 

53 

210 

410 

676 

,326 

95 

229 

16 
100 

125 
202 



65 
500 
925 
411 
571 
40 
33 
800 
104 
120 



13,543 



* All flrst-griide schools have kindergartens. t Kindergartens are conducted by a 

private association financially assisted from public-school funds. 



6 APPENDIX 

MANUAL TKAINING IN SCHOOLS FOR THE COLORED RACE 



Name of Institution 



Location 



Grade ot 

Academic 

Work 



Storrs Scliool 

Shaw University 

Storer College 

Hampton Normal Institute 

Mt. Hermoii Female Seminary. 
Southland Col. and Normal Inst. 

Princess Anne Academy 

Colored Industrial School 

Knoxville College 

Penn Normal and Ind. School. . 
State Colored Normal School.. . 

Allen University 

Tuskegee Nor. and Ind. Institute 

Tougaloo University 

Albion Academy 

Spelman Seminary 

Ballard Normal and Ind. School 

Scotia Seminary 

Central Tennessee College 

Hartshorn Memorial College... 

Biddle University 

Fisk University 

Roger Williams University 

Paul Quinn College 

Norfolk M ission College 

Howard University 

Colored Public Schools 

Straight University 

Wilberforce University 

Mary Allen Seminary 

Virginia Institute 

Scofield Industrial School 

Institute for Colored Youth 

Burrell Academy 

Emerson Mem. Home School . . 
State Normal and Ind. College. . 
State Nor. School for Col. Persons 

Southern University 

Alcon Agr. and Mech. College.. 

State Normal School 

Lincoln Academy 

St. Augustine School 

Lincoln Academy 

Arkansas Industrial University. 

Berea College 

Colored Industrial School 

Bishop College 

Brewer Normal School 

Hearne Academy 

Shorter University 

Knox Institute 

Walker Baptist Institute 

Chandler Normal School 

Washburn Seminary 

State Col'd Nor. and Ind. School 
Cookman Institute 



Atlanta, Ga. 
Raleigh. N. C. 
Harper's Ferry, W. V 
Hampton, Va, 
Clinton, Miss. 
Southland, Ark. 
Princess Anne, Md. 
Huntsville, Ala. 
Knoxville, Tenn. 
Frogmore, S. C. 
Salisbury, N. C. 
Columbia, S. C. 
Tuskegee, Ala. 
Tougaloo, Miss. 
Frauklinton, N. C. 
Atlanta, Ga. 
Macon, Ga. 
Concord, N. C. 
Nashville, Tenn. 
Richmond, Va. 
Charlotte, N. C. 
Nashville, Tenn. 
Nashville, Tenn. 
Waco. Tex. 
Norfolk, Va. 
Washington, D. C. 
Jacksonville, Fla. 
New Orleans, La. 
Wilberforce, Ohio. 
Crockett, Tex. 
Petersburg, Va. 
Aiken, S. C. 
Philadelphia, Penn. 
Selma, Ala. 
Ocala, Fla. 
Tallahassee, Fla. 
Frankfort, Ky. 
New Orleans, La. 
West Side, Miss. 
Goldsboro, N. C. 
Kino^'s Mount'n, N. C. 
Raleigh, N. C. 
Jefferson City, Mo. 
Pine Bluff, Ark. 
Berea, Ky. 
Borden town, N. J. 
Marshall, Tex. 
Greenwood, S. C. 
Hearne, Tex. 
Arkadelphia, Ark. 
Athens, Ga. 
Augusta, Ga. 
Lexington, Ky. 
Beaufort, N. C. 
Normal, Ala. 
Jacksonville, Fla. 



Grammar 

Collegiate 

High 

Gram, and High 

High 

Primary to Coll. 

High 

High 

Gram, and High 

High 

Gram, and High 

Primary to Coll. 

Gram, and High 

Primary to Coll. 

High 

Gram, and High 

Gram, and High 

Gram, and High 

Gram, to Coll. 

High 

Gram, to Coll. 

Gram, and High 

High and Coll. 

High 



Prim, to Gram. 

High 

Gram, and High 

Gram, and High 

High 

Grammar 

High and Norm. 

Grammar 

Gram, and High 

High 

High 

Gram, to Coll. 

Collegiate 

High 

Gram, and High 

Gram, to Coll. 

High 

High 

High and Coll. 

Gram, and High 

Gram, and High 

Gram, and High 

High 

Gram, and High 

Gram, and High 

High 

Gram, and High 

Gram, and High 

High 

High 



1865 
1865 
1867 
1868 
1875 
1876 
1878 
1879 
1879 
1880 
1881 
1881 
1882 
1882 
1882 
1883 
1883 
1883 
1884 
1884 
1885 
1885 
1885 
1885 
1886 
1887 
1887 
1887 
1888 
1888 
1888 
1889 
1889 
1890 
1890 
1890 
1890 
1890 
1890 
1890 
1890 
1890 
1891 
1892 
1892 
1892 
1892 
1893 
1893 
1894 
1894 
1894 
1894 
1894 



APPENDIX 



397 



MANUAL TRAINING IN SCHOOLS FOR THE COLORED RACE — 

Concluded. 



Name of Institution 


liOCATION 


Grade of 

Academic 

Work 


bo 

II 


bti 

s 


bcg^ 
~ s 

^1 


Beach Institute 


Savannah, Ga. 
Thomasville, Ga. 
New Orleans, La. 
New Orleans, La. 
Holly Springs, Miss. 
Klizaheth City, N. C. 
Plymouth, N. C. 
Orangeburg, S. C. 
Knoxville, Tenn. 
Austin, Tex. 
Mobile, Ala. 


Gram, and High 

High 

High and Coll. 




7 
2 

i 

20 
1 
4 


85 


Alien Industrial School 


80 


New Orleans University 




Mississippi State Normal School 
State Colored Normal Scliuol. . . 
Plymouth State Normal School. 

Rankin-Richards Institute 

Slater Training School 


High 

High 

High 

Gram, and High 

Gram, and High 


* 


85 

454 
25 


Tillotson Institute 


55 


Emerson Institute ... 


Gram, and High 













67 Manual-training Schools 


327 


10,332 





* The date given is that of establishment of school. 
Training was not ascertained in these instances. 



Date of establishment of Manual 



PRIVATE MANUAL-TRAINING SCHOOLS 



Name of Institution 



Massachusetts Inst, of Technology * 

Penn. School of Industrial Arts 

Working-men's School 

Miller Manual labor School 

Washington University M. T. School 

Girai d College 

Chicago Manual-training School . . . 

Hebrew Technical Institute 

M. T. School of Tulane University. . 
H. Mann School and Teadiers" Coll. 

Haish Manual-training School 

Pratt Institute 

H. S. Newcom Memorial College 

Sloyd Manual-training School 

Tyler School ... 

Jewish Training School 

National University 



Location 



Boston, Mass. 
Philadelphia, Penn. 
New York. N. Y. 
Crozet, Va. 
St. Louis, Mo. 
Philadelphia, Penn, 
Chicago, 111. 
New York, N. Y. 
New Orleans, La. 
New York, N. Y. 
Denver, Col. 
Brooklyn, N. Y. 
New Orleans, La. 
Boston, Mass. 
Providence, R. I. 
Chicago, 111 
Chicago, 111. 



Grade ot 

Academic 

Work 



High 

High 

Grammar 

High 

High 

Gram, and High 

High 

Grammar 

High 

Primary to Coll. 



High 

High and Coll. 

Normal 

Gram, and High 

Prim, and Gram. 





bo 


a 


c,,.S 


f?« 


b a 


Ed aJ 


££ 


Ls 


^^ 


OJS 


aj.SS 


%^ 


a 




1876 




1876 




1878 


19 


1878 




1879 


14 


1882 


11 


1893 


13 


1883 


11 


1884 


6 


1884 


12 


1886 


2 


1887 




1887 




1889 


3 


1890 


6 


1890 


27 


1890 


5 



353 
198 
300 
650 
263 
254 
114 
257 
11 
125 

ioi 

330 
700 
500 



* The Massachusetts Institute of Technology was established in 1865 ; but in 1876 it 
adopted Manual Training as a system into all its grades, and thus became the flrst dis- 
tinctive Manual-training School" without prejudice to its high standing as an Institute 
of Technology. 



398 APPENDIX 

PRIVATE MANUAL-TRAINING SCHOOLS — Conc/wJec/. 



Name of Institution 



Miss Say er's School 

Swedeuborgian School 

Thorp Polytechnic Institute 

Friends' Select School 

ProvidenceTraining School for Sloyd 

Plainfleld Academy 

California School of Mechanical Arts 

St. Andrew's 

Lewis Institute 

Free Industrial School 

Commons Manual-training School. . 
Hull House Manual-training School. 

Elmwood S<;hool ■. 

Franklin School 

Lasell Seminary 

Talladega College 

Kenilworth Academy 

Y. M. C. A. Manual-training Dep't. . 

Clark University 

Private Manual-training Class 



Location 



Newport, R. I. 
Waltham, Mass. 
Pasadena, Cal. 
Philadelphia, Penn. 
Providence. R. I. 
Plainfleld, N. J. 
San Francisco, Cal. 
Rochester, N. Y 
Chicago, 111. 
San Diego. Cal. 
Chicago, III. 
Chicago, 111. 
Buffalo, N. Y. 
Buffalo, N. Y. 
Auburndale, Mass. 
Talladega, Ala. 
Kenilworth, 111. 
Hartford, Conn. 
Atlanta, Ga. 
Winnetka. 111. 



Grade of 

Academic 

Work 



Gram, and High 

Grammar 

Gram, to Coll. 

High 

Normal 

Prim, to High 

High 

High 

High and Coll. 

Gram, and High 

Grammar 

Gram, and High 



cc S 



1891 
1891 
1892 
1892 
1893 
1893 
1895 
1895 
1896 
1896 
1896 
1897 



20 
60 

300 

123 
49 
25 

310 
60 

200 
80 
40 
70 



MANUAL TRAINING IN PUBLIC NORMAL SCHOOLS 



Name of School 



Santee Normal Training School. 
Cook County Normal School *. . 

State Normal School 

State Normal Training School . . 
Industrial Institute and College. 
West Chester State Normal School. 



Santee Agencv, Neb. 

Chicago, III 

Whitewater, Wis 

New Britain, Conn.. . 

Columbus, Miss 

West Chester, Penn. 



State Normal School I San Jose, Cal. 

Georgia Normal and Industrial College. 

State Normal and Model School 

State Female Normal School 

Normal College of New York 

Normal and Industrial School 

Keystone State Normal School 

St:Ue Normal School 

Westfielil Normal School 

State Normal School 

Alabama Normal College for Girls 



Milledgeville, Ga.... 

Trenton, N.J 

Farmville, Va 

New York, N. Y 

Greensboro, N. C 

Kutztown, Penn 

Fra-^iingham, Mass.. 

Westfield, Mass 

Los Angeles, Cal 

Livingston, Ala 



bO 


ho 










.S^ 


o a 














.r; 


■s- 


II 




s 


S 


1870 


12 


1883 




1883 


2 


1884 


5 


1885 


1 


1889 


2 


1890 


3 


1891 


15 


1891 


1 


1891 


2 


1892 


12 


1892 


5 


1892 


2 


1893 


1 


1893 


5 


1894 


2 




1 



72 
4.50 
100 
253 
123 
220 
700 
284 
225 

75 
257 
300 
106 

25 

70 
475 



* The Cook County (Illinois) Normal School was originally established hs a private 
school It is now the public training school for teachers in the public schools. 



APPENDIX 



399 



PRIVATE TRADE SCHOOLS AND INSTITUTES OF TECHNOLOGY 



Name of Institution 



Rensselaer Polyteclinic Institute 

Ohio Mechanics' Institute 

Massacliusetts Institute of Technology 

Cornell University 

Worcester Polytechnic Institute 

Stevens Institute of Technology 

Lowell School of Practical Designing 

Rhode Island School of Design 

Chicago College of Horology 

Case School of Applied Sciences 

School of Ind. Art and Tech. Design for Women 

New York Trade School 

Rose Polytechnic Institute 

♦Textile Schools 

Milwaukee Cooking School 

Newark Techn ical School 

Technical School of Cincinnati 

Technical Drawing School 

Cogswell Polytechnic School 

Institute for Artisans. 

Watchmakers' Trade School 

Institute for Colored Youth 

Master- Builders' Mechanical School of Phil'a. 
Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard Univ'ty 

Baron de Hirsch Trade School 

tUniversity of Cincinnati 

Leland Stanford University 

AVilliamson Free School of Mechanical Trades 

Springfield Industrial Institute 

Drexel Institute 

Armour Institute 

Mechanics' Institute 

Private School of Carpentry 

Lafayette College 

Vanderhilt University 

Boston Normal School of Cookery 



Location 



Troy, N. Y. 
Cincinnati, Ohio. 
Boston, Mass. 
Ithaca, N. Y. 
Worcester, Mass. 
Hohoken, N. J. 
Boston, Mass. 
Providence, R. I. 
Chicago, III. 
Cleveland, Ohio. 
New York, N. Y. 
New York, N. Y. 
Terre Haute, Ind. 
Philadelphia, Penn. 
Milwaukee, Wis. 
Newark, N. J. 
Cincinnati, Ohio. 
Providence, R. I. 
San Francisco, Cal. 
New York, N. Y. 
La Porte, Ind. 
Philadelphia, Penn. 
Philadelphia, Penn. 
Cambridge, Mass. 
New York, N. Y. 
Cincinnati, Ohio. 
I'alo Alto, Cal. 
Williamson Schools, Pa. 
Springfield, Mass. 
Philadelphia, Penn. 
Chicago, III. 
Rochester, N. Y. 
Racine, Wis. 
Kaston. Penn. 
Nashville, Tenn. 
Boston, Mass. 







iS- 


m 






K 2 




z s 


a 


= ■5 


c^ 


CU.2 


a> 










Q 




IS'il 


18 


1828 




1865 


6 


1865 


36 


1868 


.. 


1871 


22 


1872 




1878 




1880 




1881 


11 


1881 




1881 


26 


1883 


6 


1883 




1884 


2 


1885 


6 


1886 




1887 




1888 


7 


1888 




1888 




1889 


9 


1890 


6 


1891 


3 


1891 




1891 




1891 




1891 


10 


1891 


5 


1892 


38 


1893 


15 


1893 


15 


1896 


1 



720 
222 
599 

256 

65 

341 



556 
65 
250 



259 
67 
64 



160 
105 



300 
972 



Note.— Private trade schools for teaching watch-making, some fifteen in number, are 
united, because no data was secured. Private cooking schools, dress-making schools, 
barber schools, etc., have within the last five years sprung up in various parts of the 
country. Some of these are of considerable importance, but most are small, and no effort 
has been made to secure reports from them. 

* These schools are supported by both legislative appropriations and private endow- 
ments. They are not public schools in the usual sense of the term. 

t The University of Cincinnati is supported by both public funds and private endow- 
ments. It is unique in this, that, although a university in its grade of work, it is 
essentially a part of the public-school system. The city collects a one-tenth mill tax 
annually for its benefit ; and the university, including its technical and Manual 
training course, is free to residents of the city. The necessary expenses, such as 
laboratory fees, are kept to the lowest possible limit ; and every fainily in the munici- 
pality is entitled to educate its children in this thoroughly equipped university, prac- 
tically without cost. 



400 



APPENDIX 



TECHNOLOGY IN PUBLIC EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS OF COL- 
LEGIATE GRADE— EXCLUSIVE OF PURELY AGRICULTURAL 
COLLEGES 



Location 



bo 

a 




a^i 




^.^ 


u 


E-.2 


^ 


f.-U 


ci 






H M 




^w 








aj 




H 




1845 




1857 


14 


1864 


13 


1865 


11 


1868 




1869 


9 


1869 


6 


1869 


9 


1873 


20 


1873 


9 


1874 


3 


1874 


10 


1876 


16 


1879 


2 


1880 


3 


1880 


18 


1880 


1 


1881 


4 


1885 


4 


1885 


7 


1886 


11 


1887 


11 


1888 


2 


1888 


9 


1889 


7 


1890 




1890 


5 


1891 


3 


1891 


3 


1891 


2 


1891 


7 


1891 


3 


1891 


1 


1891 


4 


189'2 


2 


1892 


5 


1893 


9 



United States Naval Academy ' 

State Agricultural College 

Maine State College 

University of Vermont. 

Illinois University 

University of Minnesota 

University of Tennessee 

University of Iowa 

Kansas State Agricultural College 

Ohio State University 

University of California 

*Purdue University 

Agricultural and Mechanical College 

State Agricultural College 

Agricultural and Mechanical College 

Agricultural and Mechanical College 

Mechanical College of State University 

Storrs Agricultural College 

Agriculfnral and Mechanical College 

Arkansas Industrial University 

Michigan Mining School 

Agricultural College of South Dakota 

Florida Agricultural College 

Oregon State Agricultural College 

Agricultural College of Utah 

New Mexico College of Mechanical Arts 

University of Michigan 

Delaware College 

Agricultural and Mechanical Coll. of Kentucky 

State University 

College of Mining 

University of Nebraska , 

Nevada State University 

University of Wyoming 

North Dakota Agricultural College 

West Virginia University 

Clemson Agricultural College 



Annapolis, Md. 
AgriculturalCollege,Mich. 
Orono, Me. 
Burlington, Vt. 
Urbana, 111. 
Minnesota, Minn. 
Knoxville, Tenn. 
Ames, Iowa. 
Manhattan, Kan. 
Columbus, Ohio. 
Berkeley, Cal. 
Lafayette, Ind. 
College Station, Tex. 
Fort Collins, Col. 
Agricultural College, Miss. 
Blacksburg, Va. 
Baton Rouge, La. 
Storrs, Conn. 
Auburn, Ala. 
Fayetteville, Ark. 
Houghton, Mich. 
Brookings, S. D. 
Lake City, Fla. 
Corvallis, Ore. 
Logan, Utah. 
Messilla Park, N. M. 
Ann Arbor, Mich. 
Newark, Del. 
Lexington, Ky. 
Columbia, Mo. 
Rolla, Mo. 
Lincoln, Neb. 
Reno, Nev. 
Laramie, Wy. 
Fargo, N. D. 
Morgantown, W. Ya. 
Clemson College, S. C. 



332 
191 
119 

159 
150 
284 
530 
373 
84 
280 
313 
137 

190 
56 
145 
200 
150 
82 
160 
62 
237 
119 



31 
145 

225 

210 

106 

60 

24 

79 

635 



* Purdue University is partially supported by endowment, but as it secures regular 
appropriations, it is here classified as a State University. 



APPENDIX 



401 



INDUSTRIAL TRAINING IN CHARITY SCHOOLS* 



Name of School 



Location 



Baltimore Manual-labor School Arbutus, Md. 

Wilson Industrial School for Girls New York, N. Y. 

Industrini Home School , . . Washington, D C. 

McDonough School McDonough, Md. 

South Knd Industrial School Roxbury, ^fass. 

Five Points House of Industry iNew York, N. Y. 

Indiana Soldiers' Orphans' Home i Kingstown, Ind. 

Skyland Institute ; Blowing Rock, N. C. 

Samuel Ready School for Female Orphans I Baltimore, Md. 

Chicago Waifs' Mission and Training School !Chica20, 111. 



Industrial School Association . 

Kalamazoo Industrial School 

Industrial School of Rochester. 

Industrial School for Boys 

Jewish Orphan Asylum 

St. George's Boys' Industrial Trade School. 

Boys' Club in Carpentry . . . . 

Polish Orphans' Home 

Unity Church Manual-training School 

Iowa Orphans' Home 



Brooklyn, N. Y: 
Kalamazoo. Mich. 
Rochester, N. Y. 
Glenwood, 111. 
Cleveland, Ohio. 
New York, N. Y. 
Lynn, Mass. 
Chicago, 111. 
Chicago, 111. 
Davenport, Iowa. 



1841 
1853 
1867 
1873 
1884 
1885 
1885 
1886 
1887 
1888 
1888 
1889 
1890 
1890 
1891 
1892 
1895 






60 
100 

60 
140 
313 
331 

80 



30 

80 
224 
120 
400 
157 
259 

25 



* Industrial Training, rather than Manual Training, characterizes the Charity Schools, 
the central idea being to prepare the child for some occupation by which it can become 
self-supporting. As will be seen by the tal)le. this idea found very early expression in 
the Manual labor School at Arbutus, Maryland. The co-education of mind and hand, 
because of its equal, or greater, educational value, was not thought of in these charity 
institutions until recently, and cannot be said to obtain in any of them even now. 

26 



402 



APPENDIX 



PROGRESS OF MANUAL TRAINING BY YEARS, IN CITIES 

The following table shows growth b}^ years, as represented by- 
cities establishing Manual Training or Kindergartens in Public 
Schools. The number refers to cities adopting this feature of edu- 
cation in the years named. 



High Schools 


Grammar 


Grades 


Primary Grades 


Kindergartens 




Number 




Xumber 




Number 




Number 


Year 


of 


Year 


of 


Year 


of 


Year 


of 




Cities 




Cities 




Cities 




Cities 




.. 










1873 


1 




.. 






.... 




1880 


1 














1881 


1 






1882 


"i 


i882 


2 


1882 


1 


1883 


"l 


1883 


1 


1883 





1883 


2 


1884 


1 


1884 


3 


1884 


1 


1884 


3 


1885 


5 


1885 


3 


1885 





1885 


2 


1886 


5 


1886 


5- 


1886 


3 


1886 





1887 


4 


1887 


1 


1887 





1887 


5 


1888 


6 


1888 


8 


1888 


5 


1888 


4 


1889 


8 


1889 


4 


1889 


3 


1889 


7 


1890 


7 


1890 


8 


1890 


2 


1890 


7 


1891 


10 


1891 


6 


1891 


4 


1891 


9 


1892 


7 


1H92 


6 


1892 


4 


1892 


10 


1893 


5 


1893 


11 


1893 


6 


1893 


15 


1894 


7 


1894 


7 


1894 


4 


1894 


20 


1895 


8 


1895 


8 


1895 


1 


1895 


7 


1896 


15 


1896 


13 


1896 


5 


1896 


12 


1897 


8 


1897 


13 


1897 


5 


1897 


7 


1898 


2 


1898 


4 


1898 


1 


1898 


4 


* 


5 


* 


18 


* 


8 


* 


28 



* Not reported. 



APPENDIX. 403 



NOTE ON STATE LAWS IN RELATION TO 
MANUAL TRAINING. 

Connecticut, in 1888, authorized and empowered school 
boards to introduce Manual Training in public schools. 

Congress appropriated $8000 to Manual Training equip- 
ment in the District of Columbia in 1896. 

In 1885 the State of Georgia passed a law authorizing 
and recommending school boards to introduce Manual Train- 
ing in the public schools of the state. Tiie law was simply 
a moral indorsement, and had little practical effect, 

Indiana has a law authorizing the introduction of Manual 
Training into the public schools of all cities of 100,000 in- 
habitants or over. 

Massachusetts passed an authorizing act in 1884, and on 
April 14, 1894, a law was adopted, section one of which is 
as follows : 

"After the first day of September in the year eighteen hundred 
and ninety five, every city of twenty thousand or more inhabitants 
shall maintain as part of its high-school system tlie teaching of Manual 
Training. The course to be pursued in said instrucLion shall be sub- 
ject to the approval of the state board of education." 

In 1887 New Jersey passed a law to encourage the intro- 
duction of Manual Training in public schools. The chief 
provision of the act was, that whenever any school district 
should raise by taxation, subscription, or both, a sum of 
money not less than $1000, for the establishment of Manual 
Training in such school district, the state should appropriate 
a sum equal to that raised by the district, to aid in the 
establishment of such school ; provided that no one district 
should receive over $5000 in any one year from state 
funds. In 1888 this law was amended so as to include 
districts that should raise not to exceed $500, the state agree- 
ing to duplicate the sum raised. The effect of this law was 
very marked in 1890, resulting in the establishment of a 
large number of schools. 



404 APPENDIX. 

In 1888 New York passed a law authorizing local school 
boards to establish Manual Training within their respective 
jurisdictions. Tiie same law makes the teaching of Manual 
Training compulsory in normal schools, subject, however, to 
recommendations of the state superintendent of public in- 
struction, which provision lias practically nullified it. 

Ohio has a law authorizing a tax levy of ^ of a mill for 
cities of a certain size, and ^ of a mill for certain other 
cities, in excess of other taxes ; the sums so raised to be 
•used for the purpose of introducing Manual Training into 
the public schools. 

In 1895 Wyoming authorized school boards to establish 
Manual Training in the public schools. 

In 1895 Wisconsin authorized the establishment of Manual 
Training in its public schools providing state aid for the 
same, but limiting the number to receive state aid to ten 
high-schools to be selected by the state superintendent of 
schools. 

The best of existing state-aid laws is that of Maryland, 
enacted April 7, 1898. It is very liberal and will doubtless 
greatly stimulate the progress of the new education in that 
state. The Wisconsin law gives $250 to each of its schools 
per year, and the New Jersey law duplicates whatever the 
school board raises for that purpose. But the Maryland 
law gives $1500 to each school the first year, and $50 per 
pupil per year thereafter, up to the limit of $1500 per school 
per year — enough, probablj^ to pay the entire expense of 
the system. Following is the text of the statute : 

''Whereas, The establishment of well -conducted and liberally 
supported schools, or departments, in one of the large graded schools 
or high-schools in each count}^ of the state, for the development and 
training of tlie manual ability of pupils, must tend to supply a grow- 
ing want in each count}' of the state ; and 

Whereas, It is especially the duty of the state to afford the best 
educational facilities to its youth in those technical studies which are 
directly associated with the material prosperity of its people ; and 

Whereas, It is for the best interests of tliis state that the colored 
population of each county shall have an opportunity for the establish- 
ment of separate industrial schools; therefore, 

Sec. 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Maryland, That 



APPENDIX. 405 

it shall be the duty of the board of county school commissioners, when 
a suitable building, or room or rooms connected with one of the large 
graded schools or high-scliools shall be provided by the county, or 
money sufficient for the erection of sucli building, or room or rooms, 
to accept the same (if, in the judgment of the board, there is any 
necessity therefor), and thereafter to provide for the maintenance of 
a Manual Training school, or Manual Training department, for said 
county, and the salaries of teachers and Manual Training instructors, 
out of the general school fund and the state aid hereinafter provided. 

Sec. 2. Ami be it enacted, That whenever a Manual Ti;dning school, 
or Manual Training department, is opened in any county, the presi- 
dent and secretary of the board of county school commissioners of 
said county shall report to the secretary of the state board of edu- 
cation, and the state board of education shall, without delay, proceed 
to appoint the principal of the state normal school, or one of the 
teaci)ers in said school, well qualified for such service, to visit the 
school and give a certificate of approval of its condition and the plan 
upon wliicli it is conducted ; and thereafter the president and secretary 
of the board of county school commissioners shall report to the comp- 
troller the condition of the school, the number of instructors, and the 
number of pupils enrolled, on or before the twentieth day of January 
in each year. 

Sec. 3. And be it enacted. That the comptroller of the treasury, 
after receiving the certificate of approval concerning the county 
Manual Training school, or Manual Training department, according to 
the provisions of the second section of this act, is hereby authorized 
and directed to issue his warrant upon ihe treasurer of the state for 
the sum of fifteen hundred dollars, payable to the order of the treas- 
urer of the board of county school commissioners of the county filing 
the certificate of approval aforesaid, out of any moneys in the state 
treasury not otherwise appropriated, on the first day of October in 
each year, for the support of said Manual Training school, or Manual 
Training department. 

Sec. 4. And be it enacted, That the county Manual Training school, 
or the Manual Training department and the school to which it is 
attached, shall be under the management and control of the board of 
county school commissioners. 

Sec. 5. And be it enacted. That it shall be the duty of the board of 
county scliool commissioners of each count}' in this stale, whenever 
a suitable building, or room or looms connected with one of the colored 
schools of said county, shall be provided by tlie county to accept the 
same, if in the judirment of the said board tiiereisany necessity there- 
for, and thereafter to provide for the maintenance of such member 
[number] of separate colored industrial sciiools as in their judgment 
may be needed, and the salaries of such teachers as may be required 



406 APPENDIX. 

for that purpose shall be paid out of the general fund and the state 
aid hereinafter provided. 

Sec. 6. A?id be it enacted, That whenever any such separate colored 
industrial school or schools are opened in any county, the president and 
secretary of the board of county school commissioners of said county 
shall report the fact to the secretary of the state board of education, 
and the state board of education shall vi^ithout delay proceed to appoint 
a proper person well qualified for such service, to visit the said school 
or schools and give a certificate of approval of its condition and the 
plan upon which it is conducted, and thereafter the president and 
secretary of the said board shall report to the comptroller of this state 
the condition of said school or schools, the number of instructors and 
the number of pupils enrolled daring the school year last ended, on 
or before the 20th day of August in each year. 

Sec. 7. And be it enacted, That the comptroller of the treasury upon 
receiving the certificate of approval concerning the county colored in- 
dustrial school or schools, as aforesaid, according to the provisions of 
the sixth section of this act, is hereby authorized and directed to issue 
his warrant upon the treasurer of the state for the sum of fifteen 
hundred dollars, payable to the order [of the] treasurer of the board 
of county school commissioners of the county, upon the filing of the 
certificates of approval aforesaid, out of any moneys in the state 
treasury not otherwise appropriated, on the first day of October in each 
year, for the support of said colored industrial school or schools, and 
thereafter the said industrial school or schools shall be under the man- 
agement and control of the said board of county school commissioners. 

Sec. 8. And be it enacted. That no entire appropriation for the 
benefit of any Manual Training school, provided for under this act, 
shall be paid as authorized, after the first annual appropriation, un- 
less said school have had an average daily attendance of thirty scholars 
for the preceding year ; and in case said attendance shall fall short of 
said number, then there shall only be paid towards the maintenance 
of said school at the rate of fifty ($50.00) dollars for each scholar of 
its daily average annual attendance, to be determined by the report 
hereinbefore required to be made to the comptroller. 

Sec. 9. And be it enacted, That no appropriation for the benefit 
of the colored industrial schools of any county, provided for under 
this act, shall be paid after the first annual appropiialion, unless the 
average daily attendance at such school or schools shall have been, 
for the preceding year, at least thirty scholars ; and in case said 
attendance shall fall short of said number, then there shall be paid 
to the treasurer of the county school eommi.<?sioners maintaining said 
school or schools, only at the rate of fifty ($50.00) dollars a scholar, 
for the daily average annual attendance at the same, to be determined 
by the report hereinbefore required to be made to the comptroller. 
"^ Approved April 7, 1898." 



APPENDIX. 407 

The report ot the state superintendent of public instruc- 
tion for Michigan, for the year 1897, shows that Kinder- 
gartens exist in the public schools of the following cities 
and towns : Cities of over 4000 population as shown by 
state census of 1894 — Albion, Big Rapids, Cadillac, Calu- 
met, Detroit, Escanaba, Grand Haven, Grand Rapids, Hol- 
land, Ionia, Ironwood, Ishpeming, Jackson, Menonirnee, 
Mt. Clemens, Muskegon, Negamee, Niles,.St. Joseph, Trav- 
erse City, West Bay City, Wyandotte — twenty-two cities 
of over 4000 population. The twenty -four cities and 
towns with less than 4000 population as shown by state 
census of 1894, and having Kindergartens in their public 
schools, are: Algonac, Alma, Au Sable, Caro, Crystal 
Falls, Dowagiac, Fremont, Greenville, Hartford, Hough- 
ton, Ithaca, Lake Linden, Lake View, Mancelona, Manis- 
tique, Montague, Morenci, Nashville, Pentwater, Reed 
City, Sand Beach, Stanton, Union City, Vassar. Such of 
these cities and towns as furnished reports will be found 
in the accompanying tables ; from the others no data was 
received. 

Two thoroughly equipped Manual Trjaining schools are 
projected : one, to be in Pullman, Illinois, is to result from a 
bequest in the will of the late Mr. George M. Pullman, who 
left a large sum for its construction, and an annuity of 
$25,000 for its maintenance ; the other school is to be built 
by the Calumet and Hecla Mining Company, at Calumet, 
Michigan. Both these schools will be free, and will prob- 
ably become a part of the public-school system of their 
respective towns. 

The legislature of Massachusetts in 1898 passed an act 
establishing a trade-school for weavers, to be located at 
Lowell, Massachusetts, provided the city would raise half 
the money necessary for its construction, the state to pay 
the other half. This is the first well-defined movement in 
this country to establish public trade-schools to teach the 
trades prevailing in the locality of the school. Europe has 
many such schools. 



408 APPENDIX. 

Mancjal Training in Russia. 

There is, as yet, no established national school system 
in Russia. The school systems of Finland and other Rus- 
sian dependencies are provincial and local. An imperial 
decree of March 7, 1888, however, contained an elaborate 
plan for elementary national education, in which Manual 
Training, Technical, and Trade education were given not 
only prominence but precedence. The doctrine of state 
aid to educational institutions is, however, fully and liber- 
ally recognized. Manual Training was founded in Russia 
in 1868, as mentioned in the first edition of this work, by 
M. Victor Delia Vos, and revived and extended in 1884 by 
the then Minister of Finance, who sent two teachers to 
Naas, Sweden, to take a six weeks' course of instruction, 
and a w^orkshop for boys' hand labor was the same year 
established in connection with the Teachers' Institute in 
St. Petersburg. In 1885 this was made a permanent feature 
of Teachers' Institute work, and an annual grant of 3000 
rubles ($1659) was voted ; and in 1887 a course in metal 
work was added to this school. In 1888 three normal 
courses for instructing teachers in Manual Training were 
instituted and subsidized by the imperial government. 
One of these at Novaia Ladoga trains both city and country 
school-teachers; at Riga, city teachers only, while at Kiev 
only country teachers are trained. The instruction of 
teachers in Manual Training was also made part of the 
teachers' institutes at Glookhov, Vilna, and Orenboorg in 
1889. Besides these there were in 1890 eleven vacation 
institutes, training two hundred and fifty teachers for the 
work of imparting manual instruction. These teachers' 
institutes, vacation and permanent (or normal schools), 
have increased rapidly and received rich subsidies from the 
imperial treasury. In 1891 the Russian Minister of War 
introduced Manual Training into all the cadet schools. 
The most recent available data indicate the introduction 
of Manual Training into one hundred and sixteen establish- 
ments, as follows :, four teachers' institutes, fourteen teach- 



APPENDIX. 409 

ers' seminaries, four intermediate schools, forty-four higher 
public schools, and thirty-four elementary common schools. 
A more recent report — which, however, is not at hand — is 
said to show remarkable developments in Manual Training 
in common and rural schools. A brief survey of technical 
and trade schools in Russia follows. 

The technical schools at Moscow and St. Petersburg are 
imperial schools of university grade, richly endowed, and 
reputed to be the best equipped schools in Europe. The 
oldest and best technical school in Moscow below university 
rank, and making no attempt to teach trades, is the Ko- 
misarof Technical School, founded in 1865 by two railroad 
contractors. It now receives government aid, and has about 
four hundred pupils. The Society for the Promotion of 
Technical Education in 1873 founded a school called the 
*' Mechanical Handicraft School of Moscow." The govern- 
ment contributes $1000 per year to this school. There are 
five technical schools having a grade of academic work 
comparable with our high schools — the Komisarof Tech- 
nical School of Moscow, mentioned above, founded in 1865; 
theLodz,in 1869; Irkootsk, 1873; Kun^ursk, 1877; and the 
Omsk, in 1882. The five schools had 1052 students at date 
of latest available report. Trade-schools of grammar grade, 
twenty-three in number, had 2474 pupils. Of these schools 
three were established in 1868; one m 1871; two in 1872; one 
in 1873; one in 1874; one in 1875; two in 1877; one in 1878; 
two in 1879; one in 1880; two in 1883; two in 1885; three 
in 1886; one in 1887. Trade-schools of primary grade,sixty- 
three in number, with 2562 pupils. One was established 
in 1865; one in 1866; two in 1867; one in 1870; one in 1871; 
three in 1872; two in 1873; five in 1874; six in 1875; one in 
1876; six in 1877; four in 1878; three in 1879; two in 1880; 
two in 1881; four in 1882; five in 1883; five in 1884; one in 
1885; one in 1886; four in 1887; two in 1888; one in 1889. 

Manual Training in Finland. 
Finland was the birthplace of the man who first devised 
and practised that method of education known as Sloyd — 
a form of Manual Training. 



410 APPENDIX. 

Otto C3^giieaDS, of Helsingiors Teachers' Seminary, after 
a thorough study of Froebel and Pestalozzi (to whom he 
gives ample credit), originated in 1858 a system for carrying 
the education of the hand beyond the kindergarten into all 
grades of schools. To Finland also belongs the credit of 
being the first country to officially recognize the value of 
such education. Since 1866 (sometimes stated 1868) Manual 
Training (Sloyd) has been compulsory in all the elemental 
and normal schools of Finland. In 1896 there were four 
normal schools with 569 students, and 75,712 pupils taking 
Manual Training in the elementary schools of the cities. 
Statistics of rural schools are not obtainable. In addition 
to these, there were in 1896 forty-two separate and distinc- 
tively Manual -training high - schools, with 1030 pupils, 
besides eight industrial schools, with 56 teachers and 380 
pupils. All are public schools. There are technical and 
trade schools of all grades, from the Polytechnic School at 
Helsingfors to the elementary trade and weaving schools. 
There are seven schools where navigation is taught, twelve 
weaving, dyeing, and sewing schools, supported wholly or 
in part by the government, fourteen elementary technical 
schools, five high-grade technical schools, and ten trade- 
schools other than weaving and navigation. Government 
aid IS granted to all of these schools. 

Manual Training in England. 
The activity of Germany along the line of trade and 
technical schools, immediately following the Centennial 
Exposition at Philadelphia, alarmed the people of England, 
producing in 1882 what has been termed a "Technical 
education scare." The friends of Manual Training, acting 
upon this popular and commercial anxiety, secured the 
passage of the "Technical Instruction Act of 1889." By 
the terms of this act the schools organized under it were 
not to be trade-schools ; and the construction put upon the 
expression "Manual Instruction" makes the term prac- 
tically synonymous with our term Manual Training. The 
following table shows the growth of these schools. Th(3 



APPENDIX. 



411 



growth of cooking schools is also statistically represented 
in the table. 



Date 


Manual I 
Nltmbek ( 


S'.STia-CTION 
F SCUOOLS 


j SrilOOr.S OF COOKKKY AND 

DoMLESTic Science 


Yea It 


Number of 

Sell oofs 
Existing in 
Year Named 


Number of 
Schools 

Estalili.shed 

During 
Year Named 


Number of 

Schools 
Existing in 
Year Numed 


Number of 

Scliools 
Established 
During Year 


Number of 
Pupils 


1876 


•• 

30 
145 

285 
430 
677 
949* 


.30 
115 
140 
145 
247 
272 


29 

125 

178 

223 

276 

299 

347 

420 

541 

715 

812 

921 

1.086 

1,355 

1.5.54 

1,796 

2,113 

2,419 

2,634 

2,775 


29 

96 

53 

45 

53 

23 

48 

73 

121 

174 

97 

109 

165 

269 

199 

242 

317 

306 

215 

141 




1877 

1878 

1879 




1880 


.. 


1881 




1882 




1883 


1,251 


1884 


7,597 


1885 


17,754 


18Sfi .... 


24,526 


1887 


30.431 


1888 


42,159 


1889 


57,539 


1890 . 


66,820 


1891 

1892 


68.291 
90,794 


189.S 


108.192 


1894 


122.325 


1895. 


134,930 







* The number of pupils t;iking M;inr.al Training cannot be given; as an ind'cation, 
however, it may be said that the London School Board reports that in 1895, 30,508 boys 
wpre instructed in wood- work iu Loudon schools alone. 

Governmental aid to drawing and Manual Training, when 
incorporated in the curriculum of day grammar-grade 
schools, evening " continuation schools," and teachers' train- 
ing colleges, is bestowed through the executive department, 
styled " The Science and Art Department." Special atten- 
tion is paid to training teachers in the teachers' colleges, so 
that they will be able to give instruction in Manual Training. 
This is specially true to grammar-grade teachers. In 1894 
56 teachers' colleges were giving Manual Training to 4,434 
teacher-pupils, the government granting |1 3,290 in aid of 
such training. In 1895, the science and art department, 
upon examinations aided 910 elementary Manual-training 
schools, giving instruction to 67,470 pupils ; the amount of 
aid granted was |81,537. 

In 1890 a law was passed empowering county councils to 
use the surplus from duties on liquor to aid Manual-train- 



412 APPENDIX. 

ing and technical schools. Many districts use the *' liquor 
money " to establish purely Manual-training schools, attach- 
ing them to municipal technical schools. Generally, how- 
ever, the " liquor money " goes to technical and art schools. 
The report for 1895 shows 15,699,046 applied by local author- 
ities to technical instruction under the "liquor money" law. 
Scotland secured in 1887 a law empowering local authorities 
to levy a tax of a penny in the pound for the support of 
technical schools. In 1889 a similar law was passed for 
England. The Welsh law of 1889 organizing intermediate 
schools, recognizes and defines Manual Ti-aining. These acts 
Jed up to the " liquor money " law referred to. 

The City and Guilds of London Institute, organized in 
1876, is the principal private promoter of technical education 
in England. This organization has founded three schools 
of its own, besides aiding liberally similar schools in all 
parts of the kingdom. With the exception of the well- 
known South-Kensington school, the Manchester school, and 
the Birmingham schools, the technical schools of England, 
as well as its Manual-training schools and kindergartens, are 
of recent origin. Huddersheld Technical School, founded 
as a mechanics' inctitute in 1841, is another exceptionally 
old and especially good school of its class. 

Manual Training in Switzerland. 

As each canton regulates its own school system, the 
federal constitution requiring only that education must be 
obligatory and free, the same diversity of conditions exists 
in the cantons of Switzerland that is found in the states of 
our own Union • — 

Thus in the canton of Geneva, kindergartens and Manual- 
training schools are a part of the public-school system, 
entirely supported by public funds, and Manual Training is 
compulsory for all male pupils, in all grades of the public 
schools. The gradual advance from kindergarten work to 
primary, grammar, and high-school, makes a complete course 
in Manual Training in the schools of Geneva — perhaps the 
most complete to be found in any single public-school system. 
In other cantons, however, kindergartens exist generally as 



APPENDIX. 



413 



private institutions, aided by public; funds and contributions 
from societies and individuals. The growth of kindergar- 
tens in Switzerland by years cannot l)e shown from any 
data at hand; the following table, however, shows the status 
at the date of most recent available data: 



PUPILS AND TEACHERS IN KINDERGARTENS OF SWITZERLAND 



Canton 

Zurich 

Berne 

Lucerne 

Uri 

Schwytz 

Unterwa}den 

Zug 

Freyburg 

Soleure 

Basel Town 

Basel Land 

Appenzell Outer Rhodes... 
Appenzell Inner Rhodes. . . 

Grisons 

Aargau 

Ticino 

Vaud 

Valais 

Neuchatel 

Geneva 

Total 



Number of 

Separate 

Kindergartens 



1 
4 
2 
5 

10 
8 

32 
8 

16 
1 
2 

13 

23 

160 

3 



Number of 
Pupils 



3.. 532 

2,5.50 

260 

"91 

85 
188 
912 

2,117 

452 

843 

60 

80 

1,351 

4,000 

249 

997 

3,872 



21,639 



Number of 
Teachers 



19 

2 

4 

13 

43 

160 

3 

36 

85 



589 



Manual Training for boys was introduced into the 
Switzerland schools in 1884 by M. Rudin, w^ho in that 
year instructed a class of forty teachers ; in 1891 over one 
hundred teachers were taking a Manual-training course un- 
der his instruction. The following table shows the growth 
of Manual Training to 1889, or five years after its introduc- 
tion. More recent data are unfortunately not available. 



MANUAL-TRAINING CLASSES IN SWITZERLAND 



Zurich 

Basel 

Saint Gnll . . . . 
Schaffhausen . 

Grisons 

Thurgau 

Soleure 

Aargau 

Berne 



Canton 



Number of 
Classes 

19 

32 

6 

2 



Number of 
Pupils 



122 
120 
48 
46 



Number of 
Teachers 

13 
19 

8 

2 

2 

1 

1 ■ 

1 



414 APPENDIX. 

Classes in Manual Training are reported from the can- 
tons of Vaud, Neuchatel, Appenzell, Freyburg, and Glarus; 
but statistics are not given. Manual Training for girls has 
been an integral part of the public schools of Switzerland 
for many years, and in pi-actically all of the cantons this 
instruction is obligatory. The instruction consists in knit- 
ting, sewing, mending, cutting, and fitting, with lectures on 
house-keeping, and was introduced into the schools rather 
for its industrial use than in recognition of its educational 
value. Switzerland early recognized tlie importance of 
technical instruction and the development of artisan skill. 
The Municipal School of Art at Geneva was founded in 
1751, and is intended as a school for working-men. It is 
the oldest in Switzerland. The working-man's school at 
Berne was founded in 1829, and, though a private insti- 
tution, it is subsidized by the federal government. The 
Polytechnic School at Zurich was founded by the federal 
government in 1854. The Industrial School in that city, 
founded in 1873 by a society, is subsidized by the city, 
canton, and federal government. "The Tecknikum " of 
Winterthur, probably the most complete of its class of 
schools, was founded as a cantonal institution in 1873. 
The most extensive are the technical institutions for the 
education of working-men. The government began the 
establishment of these at the beginning of this century. 
By 1865, ninety-one had been established ; in 1889, eleven 
hundred and eighty-four of these schools, having 26,716 
pupils, were reported. Trade- schools have sprung up 
everywhere, adapting themselves to local industries and 
common needs. The School of Watchmaking, at Fleurier, 
was founded as a private institution in 1850, but has been 
municipal property since 1875. Municipal Schools of 
Watchmaking exist at Chaux-de-Fonds, 1865; St. Imier, 
1866; Locle, 1868; Neuchatel, 1871; Bienne, 1872; Poren- 
tru}^, 1883, is a municipal and state school, as is also that 
at Soleure, 1884. The Trade School for Women is a private 
institution of Basel, founded in 1879; that of Berne, in 1888. 
These schools are founded by Societies for the Advancement 



APPENDIX. 415 

of Public Utility, and teach women the millinery and dress- 
making trades, and give instruction in household work, and 
all the means by which women can become self-supporting. 
The societies have also founded numerous House-keeping 
Schools, and Schools for Domestic Servants. 

No attempt is here made to give a complete list of 
Switzerland's trade-schools, or the effoi'ts being made to 
advance the skill of her artisans. It is but proper, however, 
to mention the latest efforts to overcome the difficulties 
growing out of the decline in apprenticeship. In 1884 the 
Mannheim Trade Unions asked for a committee of inves- 
tigation into the condition of the small trades. The com- 
mittee reported, recommending the adoption of a suggestion 
received from the Karlsruhe Trades Union. It was in effect, 
that master- workmen who are willing to train apprentices 
systematically, according to regulations prescribed by 
school authorities, shall be aided by the state treasury. 
In 1888 Baden appropriated 5000 marks per annum for 
this purpose, and in 1892 twenty-two trades, or one hundred 
and twenty-two workshops, having one hundred and eighty 
apprentices, were subsidized. In 1895 the appropriation 
was increased. In 1898 the federal government of Switzer- 
land adopted the plan and purposes to greatly extend it. 
The result of this is, practically, that every skilled master- 
workman who desires may become to a certain extent a 
public-school teacher, and every factory or workshop is, or 
may become, a school-house. 

Manual Training in Germany. 
The officials of the regular school systems of Germany, 
while for some years past active in advancing trade-schools, 
have never recognized Manual Training as worthy a place 
in the public schools, except as regards female handiwork, 
which is everywhere a part of the course in grammar and 
high schools for girls. Individuals, and "societies for the 
promotion of practical education," must therefore take the 
initiative in Manual Training, and this results either in 
private schools, or in persuading municipal or state author- 



416 



APPENDIX. 



ities to annex a Manual-training department to some public 
school. 

Of the 328 Manual-training schools for boys existing in 
1892, 126 were independent schools, and 202 were annexes 
attached to other educational institutions of various kinds. 
Special societies maintain 50 schools and 72 annexes, of the 
above total, while municipal authorities maintain 70 schools 
and state authorities 66 annexes. The growth by years 
since 1878 is shown in the following table : 



Established 


Independent 
Schools 


Annexes to 
Other Schools 


ESTABLISHKD 


Independent 
Schools 


Annexes to 
Other Schools 


Prior to 1878. . 


i 

3 
i 
9 
4 
2 
3 


26 

4 
• 6 
3 
6 
10 


1885 


2 
1 
8 
13 
19 
21 
27 
9 


11 


1878 


1886 


9 


1879 


1887 


11 


1880 


1888 




1881 


1889 


23 


1882... 


1890 ... 

1891 


30 


1883 


36 


1884 


189'> 


16 














Total 


126 


202 



In 1892 there were 285 teachers and 7374 pupils in the 
independent schools; 363 teachers and 6841 pupils in the 
annexes, or 648 teachers and 14,235 pupils in both. While 
something had been done in Germany in the way of trade- 
schools prior to that date, the general interest and official 
zeal was created by the Centennial Exhibition at Philadel- 
phia in 1876, when Professor Reuleaux cabled to Bismarck, 
"Our goods are cheap but wretched." The various states 
began to inaugurate the educational system that had made 
the manufactures of France so superior to those of her com- 
petitor, and from 1879 to 1890 over 50 trade-schools were 
established in Prussia. 

Some of the German states, notably Saxonj^ and Wiirtem- 
berg, had early established trade-schools. In 1837 three royal 
labor-schools were established by the state of Saxony; one 
in 1838, and two in 1840. Special schools for instruction 
in weaving, embroidery, and lace-making were established; 
one in 1835, one in 1857^ one in 1861, one in 1866, and one 
in 1881. Of the 32 trade-schools in Saxony seven have been 



APPENDIX. 417 

established since 1886. In the 20 '■^ Kleinstaaten^^ or so- 
called small states of Germany there were, in 1895, 218 
trade-schools having 2047 pupils. Practically all of these 
have been established since 1879. The city of Berlin in 
1895 reported 21 trade-schools with 8992 pupils, 332 teachers, 
and expenditures (exclusive of state aid) for these schools 
of $129,102; besides $80,339 spent for trade education in 
so-called *' continuation " schools. In February, 1897, the 
number of students attending these schools in Berlin was 
14,750, or 1 per cent, of the population. 

It will be interesting, in view of the antagonistic attitude 
of the school authorities to the introduction of Manual- 
training methods in public schools from kindergartens up, 
to note how long Germany will follow the trade-school ex- 
periment of France, without learning, as did France, to fit 
her boys for the trade-schools by putting their little hands 
to school in the kindergarten, the primary school, and so 
on through grammar and high school; so that by the time 
the trade-school comes in to differentiate and accentuate 
special skill, the boy will have learned equally the use and 
control of muscle and of mind. 

The highest results of trade-schools upon a nation's manu- 
factures, and therefore upon its exports and its wealth, cannot 
be realized until the Manual-training school has furnished 
the educated hand as raw material for the trade-school to 
work upon. The nation that begins with the trade-school 
first will have a long and expensive lesson to learn. France 
learned it. Will Germany require as long and expensive a 
tuition ? Germany has, however, the advantage, in that many 
of her private citizens, and "societies for practical educa- 
tion," are, as usual, far more intelligent than her school 
authorities. 

Manual Training in France. 

The thorough reorganization of the public schools of 
France by the law of June 16, 1881, renders any reference 
to the prior system unnecessary here. 

By this law primary education was rendered absolutely 

27 



418 APPENDIX. 

free; and by the law of March 28, 1882, compulsory educa- 
tion for all children between the ages of 6 and and 13 years 
was established. The law of October 30, 1886, systematized 
the public schools, classifying and grading them, and fixing 
a curriculum. Kindergartens admitting pupils from the 
ages of 2 to 6 years were made general by this law, and in 
1886-87 there were 3597 kindergartens with 543,839 pupils. 
In 1895 this number had grown to 4734 kindergartens, 
714,734 pupils, and 9199 teachers, all women. 

The government programme contemplates that Manual 
Training proper shall begin where its elements in the kin- 
dergarten leave off, and be continued throughout the four 
grades of primary instruction. But the full purpose of the 
law seems slow of realization, for in 1890, four years after 
the passage of the law, only 400 shop-schools of primary 
grade had been established, 101 of these in Paris. Manual 
Training has been compulsory in all public high-schools of 
France since 1886. These may be either independent schools 
or classes annexed to an elementary school. In the latter 
case they are called cours coynplementaires. In 1886 there 
were 16,217 boys and 5150 girls in public high-schools; in 
1895 there were 21,996 boys and 8660 girls, a rise of 35 per 
cent, for boys and of 68 per cent, for girls in the ten years. 

In the cours complement aires there were 11,518 boys and 
5223 girls in 1895, an increase of 37 per cent, for boys 
and 26 per cent, for girls over the figures for 1886. This 
result was not, however, accomplished at once. There had 
been the usual struggle for Manual-training schools before 
the law of 1886 made them universal and compulsory. 
The school authorities of Paris introduced sewing into the 
public schools in 1867, and in 1873 M. Salicis began the 
introduction of Manual Training into what we would term 
grammar-schools. Shops were annexed to the boys' school 
in the Rue Tournefort in 1873. From that time until the 
general law of 1886 the growth was gradual. There are in 
France a large number of Manual Apprenticeship schools. 
They are a kind of primary trade-school. Prior to 1880 
various cities, as Paris, Havre, Rheims, etc., had founded 



APPENDIX. 419 

apprenticeship schools. Private schools of the same char- 
acter had been established by individuals and industrial 
associations. The law of 1880 organized these efforts, as- 
similated all these institutions, and brouglit them under 
the control of the public. The tendency to brmg all indus- 
trial institutions, whether classical, manual, trade, or tech- 
nical, under control of the state has been very marked since 
1880 in France, and still more so since the law of 1886. 
Of the six industrial and house-keeping schools for girls in 
Paris four w^ere founded by the city; the others were private 
institutions absorbed by the city — one in 1884, the other in 
1886. They are of high-school grade, and, in addition to 
general domestic economy, teach special trades to women, 
such as millinery and artificial flower work. The nation 
maintains high -class trade and technical schools in all 
industries important to her commerce. And there can be 
no doubt that the excellence of her manufactures has its 
origin in the large number, variety, and excellence of her 
free schools. The National School of Watch-makers was 
founded in 1848 b}^ the government of Savoy, and reorgan- 
ized by the French government in 1890. The National 
Schools of Arts and Trades, four in number, are the oldest 
and most important of the public institutes of technology 
and trades. The first of these was founded as a private 
institution in 1780, and became national propert}^ during 
the First Republic. The second of these schools was estab- 
lished in 1804, the third in 1843, and the fourth completed 
in 1892. These schools instruct fully in the mechanical 
arts, the purpose being to educate at public expense thor- 
oughly equipped superintendents and masters of workshops 
for industrial establishments. Such, too, is the purpose 
of the Central School of Arts and Manufactures at Paris, 
which, founded as a private institution in 1829, became the 
property of the state in 1857. 

Schools of Mining, such as the one at Houghton, Michigan, 
are located, one at Paris (National High-school of Mines); 
one at St. fitienne (School of Mines) ; and schools for master 
miners at Alais and at Douai. The National Conservatory 



420 APPENDIX. 

of Arts and Trades, founded by the National Convention 
in 1794, began in 1819, under special ordinance of the gov- 
ernment, gratuitous courses of instruction upon the appli- 
cation of the sciences and industrial arts. It is to industrial 
education what the College of France is to classicism and 
"pure science" — whatever that may mean. No attempt is 
here made to give a complete list of the trade and technical 
schools of France, whether public or private. They are 
exceedingly numerous, and cover every phase of industry. 
The purpose here, however, is to call attention to the fact 
that France began with trade-schools, and, after a hundred 
years of experimenting with trade and technical institutions, 
she reached the wisdom embodied in the laws of 1886 and 
1890, which provide for the training of the hand of the 
child in the kindergarten and continuously throughout 
the school age, thus furnishing aptest possible pupils for 
her higher trade and technical institutes, and the great- 
est possible development of skill for her industries. The 
character of her manufactures shows the importance of the 
scholar in industry. 

Manual Training in Italy. 

Discussions in 1882 and 1885 led to an official adoption 
of Manual Training in normal schools in 1892, when twenty 
selected teachers were given one month's gratuitous training. 
In 1893 Sloyd was made obligatory in the practice depart- 
ment of all normal schools. In 1893, 34 men and 34 women 
teachers were taking the Manual-training course at Repa- 
trausone. The school authorities in Italy acting upon the 
English idea of teaching Manual Training to the teachers 
first, and so interest them that they will introduce Sloyd 
into the elementary schools of their districts. 

Beyond the statement that Manual Training was experi- 
mentally taught to 400 pupils in Genoa in 1892, no data is at 
present obtainable as to the success of this plan. There are 
194 industrial schools, seeking to teach special industries. 
In 1887 there were 419 technical schools, of more or less 
importance, and 74 institutes of secondary technology. 



APPENDIX. 421 

With the exception of the Aldini-Yaleriani institute in Bo- 
logna, founded in 1834, and the Scuola Professionale at 
Foggia, established by the state in 1872, the trade and 
technical schools of Italy seem to be of recent origin. 

Manual Training in Belgium. 

The law of July 1, 1879, reorganizing the public-school 
system of Belgium, made kindergartens a universal and 
integral part of the public schools. Children are admitted at 
3 years of age, remaining till seven. "At Brussels, Liege, 
and Verviers, experimental transition classes exist, which 
prolong kindergarten methods in the primary grades, the 
Manual-training exercises of Froebel reappearing in the 
primary schools; and there developing into some simple form 
of actual hand labor, with paper, pasteboard, or clay. The 
results have been very satisfactor}^" In 1891 the city of 
Liege reported 4717 children attending public kindergar- 
tens. A normal school for training kindergarten teachers 
is maintained at Liege. In 1890 Belgium maintained 1042 
kindergartens having 104,760 pupils. The movement to 
generalize Manual Training in the public schools began in 
1882, took definite shape three years later, and by 1887 the 
state made Manual Training obligatory in all state normal 
schools, sixteen in number. Fifty cities also reported Manual 
Training established in their public schools in 1888. The 
more recent reports, while not given much to statistics, 
show satisfactory growth in the system. Schools of ap- 
prenticeship and of trade have received more encourage- 
ment in Belgium than Manual Training has in the schools 
of grammar and high-school grades. 

Apprenticeship schools to teach lace-making to the indi- 
gent peasantry were established by the state as early as 
1776. With the introduction of machinery, and the ex- 
pansion of industries, the character of these schools was 
changed. Abuses grew up. Academic tuition was aban- 
doned for work, and the schools practically turned over to 
financial interests of the exploiters of the labor of children. 
A reoganization occurred in 1890 when the state subsidized 



422 APPENDIX. 

some forty of these apprenticeship schools, and abolished 
many others. 

Trade-schools of every variety, from the schools for fish- 
ermen at Ostend and Blankenberg to the famous trade- 
schools of Brussels, abound in Belgium. While these 
schools are for the most part private schools, they are usually 
subsidized by the city or local government. The industrial 
school at Ghent is a technical school of importance founded 
in 1828. That at Tournay was opened in 1841. These are 
the oldest schools of their type in Belgium. A new impetus 
was given to these schools in 1885, and from that date many 
have sprang up in all parts of the country, the local indus- 
tries determining the character of the trade-schools. The 
trade-school at Ghent, established in 1890, is the best ex- 
pression of modern methods, as distinguished from the early 
ideas represented by Tournay. This school was overcrowded 
with pupils in 1892. The state grants a subsidy of 6000 
francs ($1158), and the province also aids the school. In 
1889, 54 industrial schools were reported in Belgium. In 
1872 a house-keeping school for girls was established by 
M. Smits, of Couillet, the first of its kind in Belgium. In 
1890 there were 160, and in 1892, 250 such schools, and 
classes in house-keeping attached to other schools. Practi- 
cally all of these were either public schools or free classes 
in private institutions. 

Manual Training in Austria. 

In Austria no attempt is made to combine in the same 
institutions the discipline of shop-work and the academics 
of the public schools. The first shop-school was established in 
Viennabyaprivateassociation, August 10, 1883. The second 
followed, February 16, 1887. In 1884 a normal school for 
the training of Manual-training teachers was established. 
At Budapest a Manual- training school was organized by 
private initiative in 1886. 

The municipal statutes almost immediately required one 
such school to be maintained by each school district, and in 
1889 there were in the twelve districts sixteen such schools. 



APPENDIX. 423 

One unimportant trade-school dates back to 1871; but with 
the exception of the work done in Vienna and Budapest, and 
a few so-called "continuation schools" and trade-schools, 
nothing of importance was done by Austria until 1896. The 
activity of the empire since the latter date has been directed 
towards the establishment of apprenticeship schools. 

Manual Training in Sweden, Korway, and Denmark. 

From Finland the new educational ideals developed by 
Otto Cygnaeus spread to Sweden, and thence to the world 
at large. Dr. Salomon of Naas introduced Manual Training 
(Sloyd) into his school in 1872, and in 1878 there were 103 
Sloyd schools in Sweden. In 1879 there were 163; in 1880, 
234; in 1881, 300; in 1882, 377; in 1883, 463; in 1884, 584; 
in 1885, 727; in 1886, 872; in 1887, 991; in 1888, 1167; in 
1890, 1278; in 1891, 1492; in 1892, 1624; in 1893, 1787; in 
1894, 1887; in 1895, 2483; or an increase of 2380 in 17 
years. In 1877 parliament voted $4000 per annum to 
advance Sloyd instruction; in 1891 this was increased to 
$30,000 per annum, in addition to amounts given by pro- 
vincial authorities, agricultural and private societies, and 
parish authorities. The Naas seminary for the instruction 
of teachers of Sloyd (Dr. Salomon's school) reports that 
2627 teachers of Sloyd had been taught between 1875 and 
1896. In the Sloyd teachers training-school at Stockholm 
573 women instructors were taught in the years from 1885 
to 1897, inclusive. There are 32 evening and holiday schools, 
which in 1895 received a subsidy of $12,060. 

There is no definite data on Manual Training in Norway 
earlier than 1889, though Sloyd had doubtless been intro- 
duced from adjacent countries prior to that time. By law, 
however, Sloyd was made compulsory in all city elementary 
and intermediate grade schools in 1892, and optional in 
village schools. In 1891, $5060 was given as a subsidy for 
teaching Sloyd in 178 schools. The number of students in 
rural elementary schools in which Sloyd is optional is given 
at 236,161; number of students in city schools where Sloj^d 
is compulsory, 58,871. 



424 APPENDIX. 

In 1883 the first Danish Sloyd school was established. 
The Copenhagen Seminary for instructing teachers of Sloyd 
was established in 1885. In 1888, 46 schools reported Sloyd 
courses with 2000 pupils under instruction; this number in 
1889 had grown to 59, and in 1896 to 114. Of this latter 
number 30 are regular Sloyd schools; the others educational 
institutions having Sloyd as a part of the course. In 1890, 
14368 was appropriated to further the introduction of Sloyd 
into the schools of Denmark. In this connection must be 
mentioned the ''Home Industry" schools of Denmark. Not 
less than 500 of these schools exist, generally attached to 
other schools, and supported by 400 societies for promotion 
of home industries and by state aid. It was the powerful 
advocacy of these schools by their champion, Clauson-Kaas, 
that delayed the introduction of Sloyd into Danish schools 
until 1883, when the influence of Professor Mikkelsen began 
to gain the ascendency. Not only was Clauson - Kaas a 
powerful man in his advocacy of these home industry schools, 
but equally vociferous and partisan in his opposition to 
Manual Training or Sloyd as a means of education and 
intellectual development. In the terrific strife of partisan 
school-teachers as to what constituted education, the schools 
of Denmark not only deteriorated but were wellnigh closed. 
That the home industry schools had their use is witnessed 
by the fact that practically every Danish housewife is not 
only an expert needlewoman and house-keeper, but expert 
in all those arts that go by the name of female handicraft. 
Grade schools and technical education have not developed 
greatly in Scandinavian countries. Sweden has two im- 
portant schools for weaving, the Eskilstuna school for metal- 
workers, and four technical schools. Norway has two schools 
for teaching the wood-carver's trade, two of carpentry, a 
school for mechanics, three technical schools, and four in- 
dustrial schools for women. Apart from the numerous 
schools of home industries, difficult if not impossible to 
classify, Denmark has a trade-school for shoemakers, and 
one of considerable importance for watch-makers. 



APPENDIX. 425 

Manual Training in the Netherlands. 
The normal course in the Netherlands includes Manual 
Training for boys, it being the intention to teach teachers 
first, and to establish Manual Training in the schools later. 
There are a large number of trade and apprenticeship schools, 
the government taking far more interest in these than in 
Manual Training. In 1895 there were twenty ''^Amhacht- 
scholen'^'' (for training tinners, carpenters, and dyers), with 
2295 students. There are forty-eight industrial schools. 

Manual Training in Argentine Republic. 
January 13, 1896, a commission was appointed to report 
a plan for the introduction of kindei'gartens and Manual 
Training into- the public-school system. In 1897 the report 
was made, and its recommendations were enacted into a 
law going into effect January 1, 1898. The introduction 
of Manual Training is to begin with the national colleges, 
sixteen in number, with 2629 pupils ; the normal schools, 
thirty-five in number, with 1770 pupils. Ultimately under 
the law Manual Training will be adopted in the 3749 ele- 
mentary schools, having 264,294 pupils, though no statistics 
are at hand showing to what extent this has been already 
accomplished. The papers presented before the commis- 
sion which sat through February, 1896, were upon the im- 
portance of kindergartens as a basis for Manual Training; 
Manual Training as a means of education; Manual Training 
from the hygienic standpoint, etc. Some speakers favored 
industrial rather than Manual -training schools, but the 
commission reported that the system of Sloyd used at 
Naas, Sweden, with certain modifications to suit local con- 
ditions, was the proper one to adopt. The kindergarten 
system recommended is purely Froebelian. From one of 
the papers read before the commission it is learned that 
Manual Training is a recognized part of the course of instruc- 
tion in the national colleges of Uruguay, and to some extent 
in its elementary schools. Definite data for Uruguay schools 
are not, however, at hand. 



INDEX. 



A. 

Abstract ideas regarded as of more vital importance than things, 185. 

Adam, legend of, and the stick, 157. 

Adams, Charles Francis, Jr., arraigns the schools of Massachusetts for 
automatism, 201 ; declares that, in the public schools, children are 
regarded as automatons, etc., 205. 

Adler, Prof. Felix, declaration of [in note], that manual training promotes 
rectitude, 142 ; unique educational enterprise of, in New York City, 
342 ; extracts from report of, as to purposes of the " model school," 
344, 345. 

Age of force, the, is passing away, 303. 

Age of science and art, the, has begun, 303. 

Agricola, noted for the practice of the most austere virtue, 274 ; after great 
services, was retired, 274. 

Agricultural colleges, manual training in twelve, of the State, 341. 

Agriculture nearly perishes in the Middle Ages — prevalence of famines, 
281. 

Alabama, Agricultural and Mechanical College of, adopts manual training, 
355. 

Alcibiades kept not his patriotism when he was being wronged, 255. 

Alison, his theory of the cause of the decline of Rome, 63. 

Altruism, stability of government depends upon, 135. 

America, discovery of, the crowning act of man's emancipation from the 
gloom of the Dark Ages, 286 ; gives wings to hope, 287 ; startles the 
people of Europe from the deep sleep of a thousand years, 287 ; a great 
blow to prevaihng dogmatisms, 307 ; completes the figure of the earth, 
rendering it susceptible of intelligent study, 307. 

America, early immigration to, coiisir ted of Puritans and Cavaliers, Germans, 
Frenchmen, and Irishmen, 306 ; destined to become the home of an old 
civilization, 306; the manner in which the colonists of, treated the natives 
showed the Roman taint of savagery, 306 ; European social abuses exag- 
gerated in, 323 ; the eyes of mankind rest upon, alone with hope, 323. 

Americans, are transplanted Europeans contioUed by European mental and 
moral habitudes, 323 ; will not vote away their right to vote, 324, 325. 



438 INDEX. 

Anaxagoras, his characterization of man as the wisest of animals because 
he has hands, 152. 

Ancients, reverence due them for their art triumphs, 73 ; temples of, re- 
mained long as instructors of succeeding generations, 73; educational 
theory of, contrasted with tliat of moderns, 123; ignorance of, on the 
subject of physiology, 153 ; speculative philosophy the only resource of, 
153; slow growth of, in morals due to the fact of their neglect of the 
education of woman, 366 ; contempt of, for children, 367. 

Anossoff, a Russian general, experiments of, in the effort to produce Damas- 
cus steel, 72. 

Antwerp, Flemish silk-weavers of, flee to England upon the sacking of, 34. 

Apollo, bronze statue of, at Rhodes, 47. 

Apprentice system, the, gives skilled mechanics to England, 181. 

Apprentices better educated than school and college graduates, 239. 

Architecture, limit of, attained in Greece and Rome, 73. 

Aristocracy, alliance of, with the kings, 290. 

Arithmetic, automatism in teaching it in the schools of the United States, 
as shown by the. Walton report, 197; Colonel Parker's declaration in 
regard to the defective methods of instruction in, 206, 207. 

Arnold, John, inventor of the chronometer, 86; his ingenious Avatch, of the 
size of twopence and weight of sixpence, 86. 

Art, its cosmopolitan character, 12; the product of a sequential series of 
steps, 73 ; the preservation of a record of each step essential to prog- 
ress, 73 ; printing makes every invention in, the heritage of all the ages, 
286; triumphs due to the laborer, 294; ignored in educational systems, 
326. 

Artisan, the, embodies the discoveries of science in things, 13 ; more deserv- 
ing of veneration than the artist, 74 ; regarded with disdain by states- 
men, lawyers, litterateurs, poets, and aitists, 185; education of, more 
scientific than that of merchants, lawyers, judges, etc., 227; training 
of, is objective, 231 ; intuitively shrinks from the false, and struggles to 
find the truth, 231 ; always in the advance, 242. 

Artists more highly esteemed than engineei'S, machinists, and artisans, 185. 

Arts, the fine, not so fine as the useful, 74; can exist legitimately only as 
the natural outgrowth of tlie useful arts, 279; the so-called fine arts 
must wait for the expansion and perfection of the useful arts, 383 ; 
civilization and the, are one, 384. 

Arts, the useful, finer than the so-called fine arts — their processes more 
intricate, 74; no limit to their development except the exhaustion of the 
forces of nature, 74 ; neglect of, by all the governments of the world is 
amazing, 176; Plato's contempt of, 176; no instruction is given in the 
public schools, 181; slavery's brand of shame still upon, 190; no such 
failure of the, as there is of justice, 227 ; the true measure of civiliza- 
tion, 247 ; depend upon labor, 278 ; precede the fine arts, 279 ; unknown 
in the Middle Ages, 281 ; stagnation in, is the death of civilization, 283. 



INDEX. 439 

Athenians and Spartans as thieves, 255. 

Atkinson, Edward, declares that the perfection of our almost automatic 
mechanism is achieved at the cost not only of the manual but of the 
mental development of our men, 201. 

Attention — the equivalent of genius, 380. 

Aurelius, Marcus, sublime moral teachings of, 138. 

Austrin, Emperor of, has a suit of clothes made from the fleece in eleven 
hours, 87 ; increases her debt each year, 296. 

Authority, in the Middle Ages, chilled courage, 284. 

Automata, of the ancients — hint of modern automatic tools in, 8; of the 
moderns, triumphs of mechanical genius, 86. 

Automatism, of mind and body, 191 ; of mind promoted by the environ- 
ment of modern life, 192; promotion of, by the schools, 193; in the 
schools of Norfolk County, Mass., as shown by the Walton report, 196 ; 
as sliown in the Walton report in grammnr, in arithmetic, in reading, in 
penmanship, in spelling, and in composition, 197, 198, 199; a final and 
conclusive test of the prevalence of, in the schools, 204. 



B. 

Babylon, the hundred brazen gates of, 55 ; influence of ideas of, in full force 
in the United States down to the time of the emancipation proclamation 
of President Lincoln, 190. 

Bacon, Lord, the school he wished for, 2 ; his aphorism, 4 ; his apothegm 
on the sciences, 13; condemns the old system of education, 126; his 
opinion of the universities, 127 ; his proposal that a college be estab- 
lished for the discovery of new truth, 185 ; his proposal to bring the 
mind into accord with things, 245 ', foresees the kindergarten and the 
manual training school, 245 ; celebrated aphorism of, has had but little 
influence upon the methods of our public schools, 325 ; the basis of his 
philosophy of things, 374. 

Bacon, Roger, his daring prediction of mechanical wonders, 98. 

Ballot, power of, in the United States, 324. 

Baltimore, Md., manual training in, 342. 

Bamberger, Mr. G., Principal of the Workingman's School, New York City 
— extracts from report of, on purposes of the school, 343, 344. 

Barnesville, 0., manual training in, 342. 

Belfield, Dr. Henry H., Director of the Chicago Manual Training School, 
346 ; his early appreciation of the mental value of manual training, 348 ; 
extracts from the inaugural address of, 348-351. 

Bell, Sir Charles, his great discovery of the muscular sense, 146; his defi- 
nition of the ofiice of the sixth sense, 146. 

Bells, that of Pekin, China, 47 ; that of Moscow, 47 ; they show an intimate 
knowledge of the founder's art, 48. 

Bernot, M., inventor of file-cutting machine, 91. 



430 INDEX. 

Bessemer, Sir Henry, his birth and early training, 162 ; his appearance in 
London, a poor young man — his first invention, 162 ; as young Glad- 
stone enters the Treasury, he retires an unsuccessful suitor for the just 
reward of genius and toil, 163; his burning sense of outrage, 163; an- 
nouncement of his discovery of a new process in steel-making, 164; his 
declaration that he could make steel ac the cost of iron received with in- 
credulity, 165; his process of steel-making a complete success in 1860, 
165 ; compared with Mr. Gladstone, 165, 166 ;. description of the process 
that revolutionized the steel manufacture, 166, 167 ; value of process of, 
167; the government of England slow in honoring, 168; comparison 
between the life and services of, to man and those of Mr. Gladstone 
and Mr. Disraeli, 168, 169 ; stands for the new education, 169. 

Black- walnut, its natural history studied in the wood-turning laboratory, 36 ; 
its stiucture, growth, and uses, 37; the poet Bryant's great tree, 37. 

Blatchford, E. W., President of the Chicago Manual Training School As- 
sociation, 346. 

Blatchford Literary Society, an organization of students of the Chicago 
Manual Training School, 348. 

Blow, Miss S. E., in formulating the theory of the kindergarten, describes 
the method equally of the savage and the manual training school, 218, 
219. 

Board of Trade of Chicago, the speculative trades in futures on, are fifteen 
times more than the sales of grain and provisions, 322. 

Body, contempt of the, by the ancients, led to contempt of manual labor, 
155. 

Book-makers, the, writing the Hves of the old inventors in the temple of 
fame, 171. 

Books, the sure promise of universal culture, 287 ; the precursor of the 
common school, 287. 

Boston, the streets of, in which patriots had struggled for liberty, now 
echoed the groans of the slave, 311 ; manual training in, 341. 

Boy, the civilized, is not trained in school for the actual duties of life, 181 ; 
is taught many theories, but not required to put any of them in prac- 
tice, 181; is in danger of the penitentiary until he learns a trade or 
profession, 181, 182. 

Boys, ninety-seven in a hundred, who graduate from the public schools and 
embark in mercantile pursuits, fail, 227. 

Brain, tlie, its absorbing and expressing powers — diagram illustrating, 193 ; 
the healthy education of, consists in giving to the expressing side power 
equal to that of the absorbing side, 193, 194; tlie functions of the ab- 
sorbing side extended, while those of the expressing side are restricted 
— diagram illustrating, 194; functions of the expressing side of, in- 
creased by adding drawing and the manual arts, 195. 

IJramah, Joseph, inventor of automatic tools, 84. 

Breighton helps to solve the steam-power problem, 15. 



INDEX. 431 

Bridge, the first iron, across the Severn, one hundred years old, but likely 
to last for centuries, 241. 

Bridgman, Laura, used the finger alphabet in her dreams, 150. 

Briudley, James, sketch of the Hfe of, 172; a common laborer — a mill- 
wright's apprentice — a man of honor — an illiterate, but a genius and an 
originator of great canal ei)terpiiscs, 172-175 ; the engineer of the Duke 
of Bridgewater, 173; his "castle in the air" and "river hung in the 
air," 173 ; his obstinacy, poverty, and poor pay for splendid services of 
which he was robbed by the duke, 174; his life and career typical of a 
score of biographies presented in Mr. Smiles's " Lives of the Engineers," 
175. 

Bronze, castings of, in the ruins of Egypt and Greece, 46. 

Brooklyn Bridge illustrates the necessity of practical training for the civil 
engineer, 97. 

Brown, John, Captain, in the presence of his exultant but half-terrified 
captors, 235 ; defying the constitution, the laws, and public sentiment in 
the interest of the cause of justice, 236. 

Bruno, his fate, condemned by the Inquisition and burned as a heretic, 
178 ; persecution of, a link in the chain of progress, 287. 

Buckle, Henry Thomas, his testimony to the practical uses of imagination, 
38 ; his scathing arraignment of English statesmen and legislators, 
160; his declaration that the best English laws are those by which 
former laws are repealed, 187; his declaration in regard to the obsti- 
nacy and stupidity of English legislators, 242. 

Budget, the European, shows that the standing armies are the overshadow- 
ing feature of the situation, 290 ; the portion of, that goes to the main- 
tenance of the standing armies, 291. 

Burgos, manufactures of, destroyed by the expulsion of the Moors from 
Spain, 283. 

C. 

Caesar preferred to Cato, whose patriotism was above question, 274 ; com- 
mentaries of, in all the world's universities, 275. 

Caligula, his pleasure in witnessing the countenances of dying gladiators, 
138. 

Camillus honored in the early days of Rome, 274. 

Carlyle, his apostrophe to tools, 7. 

Carpenter's laboratory, class of students at the black-board in, discussing 
the history and nature of certain woods, 21 ; working drawings of the 
lesson put on the black-board by the instructor in, 25 ; parts of the les- 
son executed by the instructor in, 25; new tools introduced, and their 
care and use explained, 25 ; the students at their benches in, making 
things, as busy as bees, 26 ; a call to order and a solution of the main 
problem of the day's lessoti, 26 ; a tenon too large for its mortise, 29. 

Caste, a tendency to, disclosed in all history, 248 ; illustration of, the earli- 



432 INDEX. 

est — tlie chief of the brawny arm, 248 ; illustrations of, in savage and 
half-civilized coraraunities, 248, 249 ; in Egypt — in India, 249 ; in the 
United States, 313. 

Castile, manufactures of, destroyed by the expulsion of the Moors from 
Spain, 283. 

Castle of the Middle Ages, the home of music and chivalry, 280. 

Cato a type of Roman persistence in the path of conquest, 264; patriotism 
and virtue of, 274. 

Centennial Exposition, exhibit of models of tool- practice in the Imperial 
Technical School, Moscow, Russia, at the, 331. 

Charcoal, the forests of England swept away to provide it for the smith's 
and smelter's fires, in the early time, 63. 

Charlemagne, attempt of, to reconstruct a worn-out civilization, 280; neg- 
lect of the education of the people the cause of the failure of, 280. 

Chatham, Loi'd, declaration of, that the American colonies had no light to 
make a nail or a horseshoe, 203. 

Chicago, comparison of, with ancient Rome, 138. 

Chicago Manual Training School, description of building, 1 ; its main pur- 
pose intellectual development, 3 ; theory of, 4 ; engine-room of, 14 ; en- 
gine of, doing duty as a school-master, 14 ; an epitome of, in the engine- 
room, 15 ; its purpose not to make mechanics, but men, 38 ; conditions 
of admission to, 106; detail of questions used in examination of candi- 
dates for the first class in, 106-110; curriculum of, 110, 111; optional 
studies of. 111; blending of manual and mental instruction in, 111; 
missionary character of. 111 ; the only independent educational institu- 
tion of the kind in the world, 345 ; owes its origin entirely to laymen, 
345 ; established by an association of merchants, manufacturers, and 
bankers, 345, 346; incorporated April 11, 1883, 346; corner-stone of, 
laid September 24, 1883, 346; opened Februiry 4, 1884, 340; officers 
and trustees of association of, 346 ; object of, mental and manual cult- 
ure, 347 ; equipment of, 341 ; library of, 347 ; Dr. Henry H. Belfield 
director of, 348. 

Chicago Tribune^ criticism of the methods of the public schools by the, 
346 ; columns of, opened to the author, 346 ; effect of advocacy of 
manual training by the, 346. 

Child, the, becomes father of the man, in the cradle, the nursery, and at the 
fireside, 365 ; contempt of, by the ancients, 367. 

Chipping, filing, and fitting laboratory, 88 ; course in the, 88 ; the ante-room 
to the machine-tool laboratory, 88. 

Christian religion, the, its failure to save Rome, 140. 

Cicero, his doctrine of the universal brotherhood of man, 139; forecasts 
the doom of the Roman Republic, but has no remedy for the public ills 
to propose, 272 ; witliout moral courage, 273. 

Cincinnatus found at the plough, 268. - 

Cities, rapid concentration of population in, 137; plague-spots on the body 



INDEX. 433 

politic, 13*7; dominated by selfishness, IS*? ; statistics of increase of 
population in, 313, 314 ; the chief sources of society disturbances, 314. 

City, the modein, the despair of the political economist, 137; the centre of 
vice, 137; pen-picture of its vices and crimes, 140; picture of vice in, 
314. 

City of New York, College of, manual training in, 352; first report of the 
industrial educational association of, gives a list of thirty-one schools in, 
where industrial education is furnished (note), 352. 

Civil engineer, the modern, must be familiar with all the processes of the 
machine-tool shop, 97 ; his works may be amended, but never repealed, 
187; more competent than the railway president, the lawyer, the judge, 
or the legislator, 225 ; trained in things, 225. 

Civilization, progress of, depends upon progress in invention and discovery, 
65; a growth from the state of savagery, 131 ; evils of, flow from men- 
tal development wanting the element of rectitude, 132; contrast pre- 
sented by that of Italy in the fifteenth century, and that of America in 
the nineteenth, 234 ; difference between, and barbarism, 244 ; the useful 
arts the true measure of, 247 ; the product of education, 248; of Greece 
sprang from mythology and ended in anarchy, 254 ; languishes in an 
atmosphere of injustice, 278; the trinity upon which it rests is justice, 
the useful arts, and labor, 278 ; American, has not borne new social 
fruits, 323. 

Clark, John S., his elaborate exposition of the defects of existing educa- 
tional methods, 193, 194, 195. 

Claudius, under the favor of, Seneca amassed a vast fortune, 273. 

Clement, Joseph, great English inventor of the eighteenth century, 84; his 
two improvements in the slide - rest, and the medals he received for 
them, 92. 

Cleveland, 0., manual training in, 342. 

Coal, subject of production, cost, demand, and supply discussed in forging 
laboratory, 62 ; history of application of, to useful arts, 63 ; prejudice 
against use of mineral, in the beginning of the seventeenth century, 64 ; 
smelting with mineral, successfully introduced in England in 1766, 66, 

Coalbrookdale Iron-works, mineral coal first used at, for smelting purposes, 
65, 66. 

Columbus, in proving that the world is round, frees mankind, 286 ; sounds 
the death-knell of intellectual slavery, 286, 287. 

Comenius, the school he struggled in vain to establish, 2 ; his theory of 
learning by doing, 13; condemns the old system of education, 126; his 
definition of education, 127 ; foresees the kindergarten and the manual 
training school, 245. 

Commerce, early, of America, so insignificant that in 1784 eight bales of 
cotton shipped from South Carolina were seized by the custom authori- 
ties of England on tlie ground that so large a quantity could not have 
been produced in the United States, 203. 



434 INDEX. 

Commercial Club, the, founds the Chicago Manual Training School, 2 ; guai-- 

antees $100,000 for its support, 3 ; meeting of, March 25, 1882, 346. 
Common-school system of the United States, glaring defects of, shown by 

the Walton report, 197, 198, 199. 
Composition, automatism in teaching, in the schools of the United States, 
' as shown by the Walton report, 199. 
Compton, Prof. Alfred Gr., on the exacting nature of the demands made 

upon instructors by the new education, 352. 
Concrete, progress can find expression only in the, 151, 152; a lie always 

hideous in the, 224. 
Connecticut, manual training in State Normal School, 342; legislature of, 

adopts manual training as part of the course of public instruction, 360. 
Contempt, in the Middle Ages, withered hope, 284. 
Convent, of the Middle Ages, the home of religion and of art, 280. 
Cook County Normal School, III, manual training in, 342. 
Cooley, Lieut. Mortimer E., letter of, to the author on effects of manual 

training in the University of Michigan, 363. 
Cordova the abode of wealth, learning, refinement, and the arts, 282. 
Corporate power unduly promoted by reckless legislation on the subject of 

land in the United States, 320. 
Corporations, a creation of yesterday, the product of steam, 320; almost as 

indestructible as landed estates, 320 ; men trained from generation to 

generation to the care of, 320. 
Cort, Henry, an English inventor of the eighteenth century, 84; experiments 

of, with a view to the improvement of English iron, 115. 
Cotton-gin, the, trebled the value of the cotton-fields of the South, 160. 
Cotton Exchange of New York, speculative trades in futures on, thirty times 

more than the actual cotton sales, 322. 
Crane, R. T., Vice-President of the Chicago Manual Training School Asso- 
ciation, 346. 
Cranege, the Brothers, inventors of the reverberatory furnace, 66. 
Crerar, John, Trustee of the Chicago Manual Training School Association, 

346. 
Crusaders, their astonishment at the splendors of Constantinople, 285 ; they 

expected to meet with treachery and cruelty — they found chivalry and 

high culture, 285 ; they returned to Europe relieved of many illusions, 

285, 286. 
Crusades, the, pitiful and prolific of horrors as they were, shed a great 

light upon Europe, 285 ; brought the men of the West face to face with 

a progressive civilization, 285. 



Daedalus, invention of turning ascribed to, by the Greeks, 33. 

Damaseus blades, the most signal triumph of the art of the smelter and the 



INDEX. 435 

smith, 72 ; the material of which they were made, and their temper, 72 ; 
first encountered by Europeans during the Cru?a(ies , 72 ; triumphs of 
genius not less pronounced than the Athena of Phidias, 74. 

Dark Ages, tlie shame of, caused by the neglect of the useful arts, 64; 
maxims of Machiavelli explain the fact of the existence of, 284 ; gloom 
of, dispelled by the discovery of America, 286. 

Darwin, Charles, declares that a complex train of thought cannot be carried 
on without the aid of words, 149 ; law of reversion of, in operation dur- 
ing the decay of the Roman civilization, 275. 

Da Vinci, Leonardo, took up the work of Archimedes, and the science of 
mechanics made progress, 287. 

De Caus helps to solve the steam-power problem, 15. 

Delia Vos, M. Victor, Director of the Imperial Technical School, Moscow, 
121 ; testimony of, as to value of manual training, 121 ; author of the 
laboratory process of tool instruction, 331. 

Democratic idea, the, not new when adopted in America, 309. 

Democratic principle in the United States Government does not prevent 
class distinctions, 313. 

Denmark nppropriates money for teaching hand-cunning in the schools, 368. 

Denver (Col.) University, manual training in, 355. 

Dickens, Charles, his pen-picture of " Tom All-alone's " — philosophy of, 315, 

Dinwiddle, Prof. H. H., his account of the manner in which the Agricultural 
and Mechanical College of Texas was revolutionized in the interest of 
manual training, 359. 

Disasters, mercantile and other, show that business is done by the "rule 
of thumb," 214. 

Disraeli (Lord Beaconstield), his tribute to the value of the imagination as 
a useful quality, 38 ; his alternations of political power with Mr. Gladstone 
— from Liberalism to Toryism an easy transition, 164; England heaps 
honors upon him while it neglects Mr. Bessemer, 168; comparison be- 
tween the life services of, to man and those of Sir Henry Bessemer, 
169. 

Doane, John W., Trustee of the Chicago Manual Training School Associa- 
tion, 346. 

Dogmatist, the, no place for, in the modern order of things, 124. 

Domestic economy made a department of the Iowa Agricultural College, 
360; part of the curriculum of the Le Moyne Normal Institute, 362. 

Draper, Dr. John W., profound observation by, 377 ; drudgery and humil- 
ity, the value of, 374. 

Drawing, thoroughness of training in, 16 ; definition of, 16 ; sketches of cer- 
tain geometric forms, 17 ; woiking drawings, pictorial drawings, and de- 
signs applied to industrial art, 18; its aesthetic element, 18; geometry 
its basis, examples of, 18 ; from objects in the school laboratories, 19; 
value of, as an educational agency, 19; language of, common to all 
draughtsmen — pen-picture of class in, 20 ; first step of expression, 208. 



436 INDEX. 

Drayton, W. Heyward, historical sketch of origin of manual training in 
Girard College by, 353-355. 

Dudley, Dud, inventor of machinery for the application of mineral coal to 
smelting purposes, 64 ; sketch of career of, 64, 65 ; combinations 
against, by the charcoal iron-masters, 64, 65 ; furnaces of, destroyed by 
mobs, and their owner reduced to beggary and driven to prison, 64, 65. 

Dun, R. G., & Co., statistics of, in relation to commercial failures, 211. 



E. 

Ear not a more important organ than the hand because situated nearer the 
brain, 154. 

Eau Claire, Wis., manual training in, 342. 

Edict of Nantes, revocation of, drove artisans to England, 34. 

Education, the philosopher's stone in, 2 ; laying the foundation of, in labor, 
3 ; the power to do some useful thing the last analysis of, 12 ; definition 
of, 12; confined to abstractions in the past, 13 ; the new — claims made 
in its behalf, 105; universal, a modern idea, 123; difference in systems 
of, constitutes difference- between ancient and modern civilizations, 123, 
124; every child entitled to receive, 124; certain fundamentals of, upon 
which all are agreed, 125 ; Rousseau's definition of, 125 ; begins at birth 
and continues to the end of life, 126 ; Froebel's definition of, 126 ; old 
system of, condemned by Bacon, Comenius, Rousseau, Pestalozzi, and 
Froebel, 126; of woman more important than that of man, 128; develops 
innate mental qualities and forms character, 130; all, is both mental 
and moral, 133 ; any system of, that does not produce altruism is vicious, 
136 ; first step in, to eliminate selfishness and put rectitude in its place, 
136 ; a system of, consisting exclusively of mental exercises, promotes 
selfishness, 141 ; methods of, controlled by the Classicism of the Re- 
naissance, 154; of the hands as well as the brain necessary, 172; the 
old, designed to make lawyers, doctors, priests, statesmen, litterateurs, 
and poets, 179 ; that is not practical, in the Age of Steel, is nothing, 179 ; 
not broad enough on the expressing ^^ide of the brain, 194; illustrations 
of defects of, shown by the Walton report, 196, 197, 198, 199; in ex- 
isting systems of, the memory is cultivated while the reason is allowed 
to slumber, 200; defective methods of, result in vast mercantile and 
railway disasters, 215 ; defective morally, since the truth is to be found 
only in things, 224 ; the New England system of, very defective, but to 
it the country owes the quality of its civilization, 235 ; in South Caro- 
lina the monopoly of a class, 235 ; a scientific system of, would have 
averted the War of Rebellion in the United States, and kept down the 
debt of England, 237 ; why popular, is provided for by the State, 237; 
the sole bulwark of the State, 238; the best is the cl.eapest, 239; of 
New England does not produce great lawyers, great judges, or great 
legislators, 239 ; exclusively mental, stops far short of the objective 



INDEX. 487 

point of true, 243 ; the last analysis of, is art, 243 ; any system of, 
which separates ideas and things, is radically defective, 244 ; the object 
of, is the generation of power, 244; the system of, which does not 
teach the application of facts to things, is unscientific, 245; among the 
ancients, was confined to a small class, and consisted of selfish maxims 
■ for the government of the many, 253; of the Greeks responsible for 
the destruction of Greek civilization, 256; defects of tlie Roman, 265; 
Roman, deified selfishness and so realized its last analysis — total de- 
pravity, 267; a false system of, wrecks the Roman civilization, 277; 
scientific, essential to the salvation of the trinity upon which civiUza- 
tion rests, 278 ; how to make it universal in Europe, 292, 293 ; possible 
only in Europe through the disbandment of the standing armies, 295 ; 
in Germany, has taught the people to hate standing armies, 298, 299 ; 
is causing the emigration of Germany's best citizens, 302 ; is the 
arch-revolutionist wliose march is irresistible, 302; the new, will come 
in as the standing armies go out, 304 ; had made little progress at 
the time of the organization of civil society in America, 309; the sys- 
tem of, under which the kings and ruling classes of Europe had been 
trained to selfishness, cruelty, and injustice, put into the New England 
common schools, 309 ; sordid view of, generally held in the rural dis- 
tricts of New England, 310; Herbert Spencer's view of the prevailing 
methods of, 310; positive ill effects of the prevailing methods of, 310, 
311; a false system of, in the United States, led to political incongrui- 
ties of the grossest character, 311 ; complete failure of, to promote recti- 
tude, 311 ; defects of system of, in the United States, shown by the ig- 
norance and crimes of legislators, 317; may be made universal through 
the ballot, 324; all property may be taken for, by the ballot, 324; 
American, is scant in quantity -and poor in quality, 325 ; no radical 
change in methods of, for 3000 years, 325; a complete revolution in, 
essential to social reform, 327 ; must begin with the child and be di- 
rected by the mother, 366 ; the new, becomes one aggressive force, 
372 ; the new, confided to the teachers of the old regime, 372 ; the first 
of human considerations, 373 ; its professors should be the most 
learned of human beings, 373 ; the new, maxims of, 375 ; what form and 
character shall our education take ? 377 ; the old, was designed to make 
masters, the new to make men, 378 ; universality and equality of, the 
first and last essential, 384. 

Edward III. of England uses the smiths at the siege of Berwick, 72. 

Egypt, how the castes of, arose, 249 ; progress of the civilization of, 249 ; 
civilization ^f, the product of education, 250 ; selfishness the basis of the 
system of education of, 250 ; wealth, commerce, and military and naval 
power of, 250 ; learning of, 251 ; luxury of, 251 ; conquered by Persia, 
251, 252 ; no provision in, for the training of woman, 366. 

Electricity must be "harnessed" at the forge and in the shop to enable it 
to do its work, 170. 



438 INDEX. 

Elizabeth, Queen, use of iron by, to defeat the Spanish Armada, 61. 

Emerson, his declaration that Napoleon was typical of the modern man, 
134; his observation that during the Crusades "the banker with his 
seven per cent, drove the earl out of his castle," 286. 

Emigrant, the, withdraws his support from the fatherland, 290. 

Emigration, social questions cannot much longer be settled by, 299. 

Empire, art of mechanism greatest of modern times, 61. 

England, history of the early iron manufacture of, 63 ; decline of the iron 
industry of, during the seventeenth century, 65; the people of, import 
their pots and kettles, 65; workshops of, originate great inventions 
during the period 1740-1840, 115; apprentices of, become learned men, 
115; material condition of, 250 years ago, 158, 159; civilization and 
transformation of — how accomplished, 159 ; studded with workshops, 
filled with automatic machines through the apprentice system, 181; 
debt of, to the French and Flemish immigrants, 185; constitution of, 
grew out of the feudal system, 190 ; safer to shoot a man than a hare 
in, 190; school system of, indescribably poor, 224; a scientific system 
of education in, would have averted wars and kept down the national 
debt of, 237 : criuiinal laws of, 241 ; draws from her people a larger 
per capita revenue than any nation of Europe, 297 ; has nearly reached 
the limit of the power of her people to pay taxes, 297 ; land system of 
— its terrible effect upon the English, Scotch, and Irish, 317. 

English history, the great names in — the names without which there would 
have been no English history, 175. 

Enterprise, in the Middle Ages, the slave of superstition and ignorance, 277. 

Epictetus, lofty patriotism of, 139. 

Equality, social and educational, essential to an ideal civilization, 375. 

Europe, face of, and civilization of, changed during the Crusades, 286 ;- 
growth of the middle class of, 286 ; the artisan became a factor in the 
social problem of, 286 ; art treasures of, destined to follow in the track 
of her fleeing population, 294 ; may restore to productive employments 
three millions of men, 302 ; may place at the disposal of her educators 
seven hundred million doUai's per annum, instead of seventy million 
dollars, as at present, 302; may extinguish her national debts in fifty- 
four years, 303 ; progress in, previous to the discovery of America, 307, 
308. ' 

Ewing, Mrs. Emma P., Dean of the Domestic Economy Department of the 
Iowa Agricultural College, 361; on the importance of the study of 
domestic economy, 361, 362. 

Expression, power of, quite as important as that of absorption, 208 ; sus- 
ceptible of being made clear only in things, 208. 

Eye, not a more important organ than the hand, because it is situated 
nearer the brain, 154. 



INDEX. 489 



F. 



Fairbank, N. K., Trustee of the Chicago Manual Training School Associa- 
tion, 346. 

Faneuil Hall, slavery justified in, 311. 

Feudalism emasculated human energy, 281 ; the ruin of, set thousands of 
serfs free, 290. 

Field, Marshall, Treasurer of the Chicago Manual Training School Associa- 
tion, 346. 

File, the, older than history, dating back to the Greek mythological period, 
91 ; of the Swiss watch-makers, 91 ; dexterity of the hand-working cut- 
ter of, 91; invention of file-cutting machine in 1859, 91. 

Finland, all the schools of, give instruction in hand-cunning, 368. 

Fire, legend in regard to it« discovery, 62. 

Foley, Thomas, on the excellence of the laboratory methods of instruction, 
211, 218. 

Force, new elements of, to be discovered and applied to the needs of man, 
180. 

Forging, laboratory of, 58; pen-picture of a class of students in, 61; story 
of the origin of the Turkish Empire related by the instructor in, 61; 
the management of the forge fires in, 62 ; lessons in, on the black-board 
and at the forges, in detail, 66 ; the instructor in, at the forge, 69 ; 
questions by the students in, 69; the school-room converted into a 
smithy which resounds with the clang of sledges, 69, 70; healthful 
effects of the exercise — the anvil chorus, 10 ; the tests of merit in, 
applied, 75 ; the instructor in, gives a lecture on the steam-hammer, 
75 ; extent of the course in, 77. 

Founding, laboratory of, 45 ; history of the art of, 46 ; first applied to 
bronze, 46 ; lesson of the day, casting a pulley, 48 ; the process in 
detail, 51 ; pen-picture of the students pouring the steaming metal into 
moulds, 52. 

Fiance, permanently weakened by the increase of her national debt, 296 ; 
debt, statement of — what the war with Germany cost her, 296 ; cannot 
double her debt again and make her people pay interest on it, 297; a 
law of, makes manual training obligatory, 368 ; supports a school for 
training teachers of manual training, 368; Prof. G. Solicis the chief 
supporter of manual training in, 368. 

Franklin, ^he famous selfish maxims of, 311. 

Froebel, the school he struggled in vain to establish, 2 ; first applies Rous- 
seau's ideas to school life, 126; his definition of education, 126; con- 
dennis the old system of education, 126; a character of, 127; his dis- 
covery of the superior fitness of woman for the office of teacher, 127, 
128 ; foresees the manual training school, 245 ; it was reserved for him 
to rescue woman from the scorn of the ages, 367. 



440 INDEX. 

Fuller, William A., Secretary of the Chicago Manual Training School Asso- 
ciation, 346. 
Fulton, Robert, an American inventor, 84. 

G. 

Galileo, persecution of, for his great discovery, 1'7'7, 178; persecutors of, 
believed and trembled, 287. 

Gallon, Francis, declaration of, that brain without heart is insufficient to 
achieve eminence, 134; his testimony to the great value of artisan 
immigration, and tlie worthless character of political refugees, 186; 
his neglect of the artisan class in his speculations on the subject of 
the science of life, 186, 187; reason of his neglect of the artisan class 
stated by Horace Mann — the influence of slavery, 188. 

George III. an expert wood - turner, 34 ; gives John Arnold five hundred 
guineas for a miniature watch, 86. 

Germanicus noted for the highest public virtue, 274 ; after great services, 
is exiled and poisoned, 274. 

Germany, Emperor of, experience of, in a needle factory, illustrative of the 
delicacy of mechanical operations, 240. 

Germany, foundation of her educational system, 295, 296; superior training 
of her people enabled her to humiliate France, 296; freedom from debt 
of, the significant feature of the European situation, 296 ; low rate of 
taxation in, 296 ; weakness of, through emigration, 297 ; the educated 
subject of, has become a thoughtful citizen, who rebels against the 
standing army, and flees from it, 297, 298 ; high value of citizenship of, 
298 ; citizenship freely abandoned, because the educated German revolts 
at the standing army, 298 ; the military records of, show the cause of 
German emigration to be disgust of the policy of international hate, 
299 ; increase in the number of military delinquents in, is the measure 
of the growth of German intelligence, 300 ; the chief power of, becomes 
her chief weakness, 300 ; cannot recoup her losses to America through 
gains from neighboring countries, on account of the policy of interna- 
tional hate, 300, 301 ; losing the flower of her population — the strong — 
the weaklings, the paupers, the aged, and the infirm remain, 301 ; is 
growing weaker each year, 301 ; agitation on the subject of manual 
training in, 368. 

Gibbon on the wealth of the Saracens in Spain, 283. 

Girard College, manual training in, 353 ; Dr. Runkle's influence in promot- 
ing the adoption of manual training in, 354. 

Gladiatorial games, atrocities of, 'in Rome, contrasted with the sublime pre- 
cepts of Seneca, Plutarch, and Marcus Aurelius, 138 ; extent of slaugh- 
ter of animals at their celebration, 138. 

Gladstone, William Ewart, political power and popularity of, 161; enters 
upon his long official career as young Henry Bessemer retires from the 
Stamp-office without his just reward, 163 ; a great orator, and a great 



INDEX. 441 

financier, a talker, a maker of laws and treaties, constantly in the pub- 
lic eye, 163 ; in office and out of office, 163, 164 ; from Toryism to Lib- 
eralism — an easy transition, 164; compared with Sir Henry Bessemer, 
165, 166; England heaps honors upon him while she neglects Mr. Bes- 
semer, 168; comparison of the life and services of, to man, with those 
of Mr. Bessemer, 169 ; stands for the old system of education, 169 ; ad- 
mission of, that the great mechanics of England had no aid from the 
government, 175. 

Gold, once the king of metals, surrenders its sceptre to iron, 124, 

Goss, William F. M., his exposition of the methods of the manual training 
school in detail, 219, 220, 221, 222; pronounced success of the Manual 
Training Department of Purdue University, under directorship of, 341. 

Grammar, automatism in teaching, in the common schools of the United 
States, as shown in the Walton report, 197 ; criticism of Colonel Par- 
ker on methods of instruction in, 206. 

Great Powers of Europe all hampered by great debts, 296. 

Greece, Egypt the University of, 251; every intellectual Greek made a voy- 
age to Egypt, 251 ; the destiny of, was controlled by renegades — there 
was disloyalty in every camp, a traitor in every army, and a band of 
traitors in every besieged city, 254 ; the oi'ators of, never refused bribes, 
and oratory ruled in, 255 ; philosophy and education of, responsible for 
decay of the civilization of, 256 ; ruined by metaphysics and rhetoric, 
256 ; no schools in, for girls, 366. 

Greeks, the people of youth, 254 ; religion and patriotism of, 254 ; were 
treacherous, cruel, and their sense of honor dull, 254 ; they enslaved 
women and robbed the bodies of the slain on the battle-field, 254 ; dec- 
laration of Thucydides that there was neitlier promise that could be de- 
pended upon, nor oath that strucli them with fear, 255 ; in the Pantheon 
the highest niche was reserved for the God of Gain, 255 ; the early, were 
pirates, and some sold themselves into slavery, so great was their lust 
of gold, 255 ; armies of the, bribed by Persia, 255 ; young, taught the 
arts of sophistry in the schools of rhetoric, 256 ; never emerged from 
the savage state, 256. 

Guttenberg and the printing-press, 152. 

H. 

Habit, all reforms must encounter the stolid resistance of, 191. 

Hand, it is through the, alone, that the mind impresses itself upon matter, 
141 ; the skilled, confers benefits upon man, 141 ; and the mind are 
natural allies, 144; tests the speculations of the mind by the law of 
practical application, 144 ; explodes the errors of the mind, 144 ; finds 
the truth, 145; if it works falsely, publishes its own guilt in the false 
thing it makes, 145; Dr. Wilson's graphic picture of the versatility of 
the, 145 ; not less the guide than the agent of the mind, 145 ; influences 
the mind through the muscular sense, 148 ; how its habit of labor leads 



443 INDEX. 

to the discovery of the truth and the exposure of the false, 149 ; the 
preserver of the power of speech through the endless succession of ob- 
jects it presents to the mind, 151; the, ceasing to labor in the ai-ts, to 
plant and to gather, speech would degenerate into a mere iteration of 
the wants of savages subsisting on fruits, 151 ; the most potent agency 
in the work of civilization, 152 ; mobility of, multiplies its powers in a 
geometrical ratio, 154 ; contempt of, an inheritance from the speculative 
philosophy of the Middle Ages, 155 ; the works of, comprise all the 
visible results of civilization, 155; marvels wrought by the, 155, 156; 
James MacAlister on the power and versatility of the [no('e], 156 ; wields 
the mechanical powers — its works, 158; the wise counsel of the practi- 
cal, steadies the mind, 225 ; not a nicer instrument than the mind, 240; 
the, stands for use, for service, and for integrity, 3Y6 ; its drill and 
discipline more highly educative than any exclusively academic course, 
376 ; through it alone man impresses himself upon Nature, 378 ; is re- 
fined and spiritualized by the sense of touch, 379; the multitudinous 
works of the, 379, 380. 

Hand-work, difficulties of, illustrated, 86 ; educative value of, 376. 

Hargreaves, James, inventor of the " spinning-jenny," 84. 

Herbert, the famous selfish maxim of, 311. 

Hero, of Alexandria, the inventor of the steam-engine, 14. 

Hero, the, is an honest man, 233 ; the, in education, 385, 

Herodotus, his description of the hundred brazen gates of Babylon, 55 ; his 
contempt for the artisan, 56. 

Heroes, the thin ranks of, constitute the measure of the poverty of the sys- 
tems of education that have prevailed among mankind, 234; are nor- 
mally developed men who honor the truth everywhere, 234 ; the fact 
that they are honored after death evidence of progress, 234. 

Heroism rendered grand by contrast with the debased standards of public 
judgment, 233. 

Herophilus opens the way to an intelligent study of the mind, 153. 

Hippocrates opens the way to an intelligent study of the mind, 153. 

Holtzapffels, speculation of, as to the origin of the invention of the lathe, 33. 

Honesty, only another name for heroism, 233 ; scientific education will make 
it universal, 233. 

Hood, Tom, his song of the shirt, 87. 

Huntsman, Benjamin, an English inventor of the eighteenth century, 84 ; 
sketch of the career of, 116 ; his invention of cast-steel, and its effect 
upon the Sheffield cutlery market, 116 ; how his secret was stolen, 117; 
declines a membership of the Royal Society, 117 ; how resplendent his 
name is now, 171. 



Ideas are mere vain speculations till embodied in things, 243 ; and things 
are indissolubly connected, 244. 



INDEX. 443 

Ignorance, illustration of, in the opposition of a Roman Emperor to the use 
of improved machinery, 178 ; reverences the past, never doubts, is sus- 
picious, an enemy of all progress, 179 ; in the schools of Norfolk County, 
Mass., 197. 

Illinois Penitentiary, statistics of show that four out of five of the inmates 
of have no handicraft, 182. 

Imagination, Buckle's tribute to the, 38 ; Disraeli on Sir Robert Peel's want 
of, 38 ; Disraeli's career an. illustration of the value of, 39 ; the discovery 
of America appealed powerfully to the, 287 ; blazes the path to glorious 
achievements, 287. 

Imperial Technical School, Moscow, manual training adopted as part of 
curriculum of the, in 1868, 331; sketch of the history of manual train- 
ing in, by Director Delia Vos, 331-333. 

India, how the castes of, arose, 249. 

Injustice, civilization languishes in an atmospiiere of, 278. 

Inquisition, the, its persecution of Galileo, 177, 178. 

Instructors, lack of competent, in the new education, 352, 353. 

Intelligence, the basis of morality, 113. 

Inventions, a growth, 14 ; each step of constitutes a link in the chain of 
progress, 187 ; contain the germs of imperishable truth, 243. 

Inventive genius, to the, mankind owes more than to the philosophers, lit- 
terateurs^ professors, and statesmen of all time, 84. 

Inventor, the, produces a machine that will make a thousand things in the 
time required by the hand-worker to make one, 86 ; helps on the cause 
of progress, 160; rules the world, 161 ; his works are never repealed, 
187 ; is always in the advance, 242. 

Iowa, Agricultural College of, makes domestic economy a part of its cur- 
riculum, 360 ; faculty and course of study in the department of domestic 
economy of, 360, 361. 

Iron, Locke's famous apothegm on the value of, 45 ; the most potent in- 
strument of power, 61 ; use of by Queen Elizabeth to defeat the Spanish 
Armada, 61 ; the equivalent of civilization, 62 ; is king, and the smelter 
and smith are his chief ministers, 62 ; to make a ton of, required hun- 
dreds of cords of wood before the introduction of " pit " coal for smelt- 
ing purposes, 63 ; the foundation of every useful art, 81. 

Italy, government of, during the Middle Ages, consisted of a menace and a 
sneer, 284. 



J. 

Jacobson, Col. Augustus, on the demand for a more comprehensive system 
of education, 180; on the proper equipment of the boy upon leaving 
school, 209. 

Jerusalem, when conquered, its smiths and other craftsmen were carried 
away as captives by the Babylonians, 70. 



444 INDEX. 

Jews, learning of, exerted au ameliorating influence upon the darlcness of 
the Middle Ages, 285. 

Judges, training of, is exclusively subjective, 230; rendered selfish by sub- 
jective processes of thought, 231 ; venerate the past, 242. 

Justice assumes the place of selfishness in the mind of the hero, 233 ; cause 
of the faikire of, 242. 

K. 

Keith, Edson, Trustee of Chicago Manual Training School Association, 340. 

Kindergarten, the, father of the manual training school, 5 ; fills a place un- 
occupied until the time of Froebel, 126 ; educational principles of, sus- 
ceptible of universal application, 126; analysis of, 128; leads logically 
to the manual training school, 129 ; method of, is scientific, 207; method 
of, is the expression of ideas in things, 245 ; realizes the dream of Bacon, 
Comenius, and Pestalozzi, 245 ; exhibits of work of, at the meeting of 
the National Educational Association in 1884, 342 ; endorsed by the 
National Educational Association, 363 ; the growth of, prevented by 
prejudice and indifference, 367. 

Kings, alliance of, with the aristocracy, 286. 



Labor class, the real flower of a population, 293 ; all other classes depend 
upon the, 294 ; a drain upon the, is a drain upon the most vital resource 
of the State, 294; where the flower of gathers, wealth most abounds, 294. 

Labor, manual, scorn of, among the ancients, 56 ; its slow recovery of inde- 
pendence, its destined dignity through scientific and art culture, 57 ; 
repugnance to, has multiplied dishonest practices, 155; respect for, 
would be increased by the adoption in the public schools of a compre- 
hensive system of mechanical training, 182; cause of the scorn of — the 
slavery of the laborer, 188; of to-day alone maintains the value of 
property, 252 ; of men cheaper than that of cattle, in Rome, 266 ; the 
useful arts depend upon, 278 ; the foundation of national prosperity, 
293 ; essential to triumphs in literature, music, and the fine arts, 293 ; 
not gold and silver, is the source of wealth, 294; draws to itself the art 
treasures of the world, 294, 295 ; contempt of, inculcated by educational 
systems, 326. 

Laborer, the, degraded through slavery, 10; contempt of, ingrained in the 
public mind, 177 ; contempt of, leads inevitably to social disintegration, 
247 ; the battles of antiquity were contests for the possession of, 253 ; 
reduced to slavery in Rome, 265 ; spurned in Rome, 266 ; the useful arts 
decline if he is degraded, 278, and advance if he is honored, 278 ; the 
standing armies of Europe have cost him all his noble ambitions, 295 ; 
surplus of, goes to the tax-gatherer, 295 ; forced to sacrifice his desire 
for education, his love of the beautiful, of dignity, and of a home adorned 
by art, 295. 



INDEX. . 445 

Laborers thrown into the arena in Rome to be scrambled for, 269. 

Landed estates, effect of concentration of, in a few hands, 320 ; vast, con- 
ferred upon a few corporations in the United States — double the area of 
that owned by the lords of England, Scotland, and Ireland, 321. 

Language, thought impossible without, 150; changes in, arise out of new 
discoveries in science and new inventions in art, 151; stagnates when 
the State ceases to advance, 151 ; invention of, 248; when nations shall 
dwell togethpr in unity there will be but one, 299 [wo/e]. 

Lawyers more highly esteemed than civil engineers, machinists, and arti- 
sans, 185; training of, is exclusively subjective, 230; rendered selfish 
by subjective processes of thought, 231 ; look for precedents in an age 
whose civilization perished with its language, 242. 

Layard, discoveries of, in the ruins of Nineveh, 46. 

Learning, the revival of exalted abstractions and debased things, 374. 

Legislation, restrictive, in England, to prevent the conversion of timber into 
charcoal for smelting purposes, 63 ; the best, in England, is that by 
which former statutes were repealed, 226 ; of the United States no better 
than that of England, 226 ; cause of failure of, 242 ; reckless, in the 
United States, on the subject of the public domain, 319; of the States 
of the Union vicious and corrupt, 322. 

Legislators, not the authors of English progress, 159 ; Buckle's scathing 
arraignment of, 160; wiser in the statutes they repeal than in those they 
enact, 226, 227 ; training of, is exclusively subjective, 230 ; rendered 
selfish by subjective processes of thought, 231; become selfish, and 
venerate the past, 242 ; refuse to grant reforms until awed into sub- 
mission, 242. 

Le Moyne Normal Institute, manual training and domestic economy in, 356. 

Life Insurance, ethical aspect of, 214. 

Literature, full of maxims in honor of selfishness, 134 ; polite, must rest 
upon a basis of general culture, or it is valueless, 279. 

Litterateurs more highly esteemed than civil engineers, machinists, and 
artisans, 185. 

Livy characterizes Valerius as the first man of his time, 264 ; deplores the 
decay of virtue, 272. 

Lloyd, Henry D., his history of the land system of the United States — sylla- 
bus of, 317 ; opening paragraphs of the history of the United States by, 
318, 319; declaration of, that we must hereafter find freedom in the 
society of the good, 326. 

Locke, the school he dreamed of, 2; famous apothegm of, on iron, 45. 

Locomotive, the — stands for the brotherhood of man, 376. 

Locomotives, no such failure of, as there is of legislation, 227. 

Lombardy, five famines in, 281. 

Louis XVI. an expert locksmith, 34. 

Lubbock, Sir John, on the skill of the savage, 216. 

Lucan, his gospel of universal love, 139. 



446 INDEX. 

Lucretia, political effects of the tragic fate of, 264. 

Luther, the reformation of, opened the way to the last analysis of dissent 
in America, 309. 

M. 

MacAlister, James, declaration of, that there has been but little change in 
the ideas that have controlled our methods of education in four hun- 
dred years, 154; his graphic description of the power and versatility 
of the hand [?io^e], 156; observation of, that a skilled hand, to the 
majority of men, is quite as important as a well-filled head, 208 ; has 
revolutionized the public schools of Philadelphia in two years, 355 ; one 
of the most accomplished as well as sternly practical educators in the 
United States, 357 ; opinion of, that every child should receive manual 
training, 358 ; opinion of, that the great principles which underlie the 
system mean nothing less than a revolution in education [note], 358, 
364. 

Macaulay's, Lord, analysis of the Baconian philosophy, 3*77. 

Machiavelli, philosophy formulated by, 284 ; political maxims of, not in- 
vented by him, 284 ; maxims of, atrocious character of, 284, 285 ; max- 
ims of, promote barbarism, 285. 

Machines, automatic, nails, screws, pins, and needles flying from the fingers 
of, by the thousand million, 82 ; more powerful to be constructed in the 
future, 180. 

Machine-tool laboratory, the students of, enter upon a most important 
inquiry, 82 ; the study of minute and ponderous tools in, 83 ; delicacy 
of the processes of, 91 ; the poverty of words as compared with things 
asserted in, 91 ; silence of, how eloquent, 91, 92 ; a screw-engine lathe 
taken to pieces in, 92; improvements in the lathe explained in, 92; 
fundamental and auxiliary tools of, explained, 93 ; course of training 
in, orderly, 93 ; students work from their own drawings in, 94 ; why 
skill is required to handle steam-driven tools of the, 94; aspect of the, 
when in repose, 9*7; aspect of the, when steam is on, 98; pen picture 
of students of, 99 ; students of, at work on graduating projects in, 100; 
dream of instructor in, 100-103 ; completing graduating projects in, 
103, 104. 

Machine-tool shop, the modern, an aggregation of hand-tools made auto- 
matic, and driven by steam, 8 ; revolution in the useful arts caused by 
the, 78; what this creation of modern times, a huge automaton with 
steam coursing through its veins, does, 78-81 ; its arms, its hands, its 
brain, its food, and its products, 81; lines of modern development con- 
verge in the, 81 ; human pursuits widely diversified by, 82. 

Macoraber, A. E., on the Toledo Manual Training School, 365. 

Madrid, people of, threatened with starvation, 283 ; lost half its population 
in the seventeenth century, 283. 

Maine, Sir Henry — his tribute to things, 379. 



INDEX. 447 

Man, the two states of — with and without tools — contrasted, V ; the gulf 
between the civilized and savage, spanned by the seven-hand-tools, 8 ; 
the wisest of animals because he has hands, 152 ; the most powerful of 
animals because he has hands, 157; powers o' increased by steam, 
161 ; the most highly civilized, familiar with all the arts, 278 ; in the 
Middle Ages, shrunk into a state of moral cowardice and intellectual 
lethai-gy, 284. 

Mann, Horace, cause of the degradation of labor stated by, 5 ; reason for 
the scorn of labor given by, in extenm^ 188. 

Manual training, promotes rectitude, 132 ; promotes altruism because it is 
objective, 141 ; its effects relate to the human race, 141 ; Prof. Felix 
Adler in support of its tendency to promote rectitude, 142 ; idea of, 
grasped by the Ionic philosopher, 153; exactly what it is, 200; is nat- 
ural and hence eTicient, 218; required to render mental operations 
more true, 225 ; possible in Europe only through the disbandment of 
the standing armies, 295 ; in all the technical schools of Russia, 333 ; 
theory of, by Dr. John D. Runkle, 338 ; in the Massachusetts Institute 
of Technology, 333, 334; in the St. Louis school, 338, 339 ; in twelve 
of the State agricultural colleges, 341; in Purdue University, 341; in- 
Boston and Milford, Mass., New Haven, and the State Normal School, 
Conn., Omaha, Neb., Eau Claire, Wis., Muline, Peru, and the Cook 
County Normal School, Normal Park, 111., Montclair, N. J., Cleveland 
and Barnesville, 0., San Francisco, Cal, and Baltimore, Md., 342; ex- 
hiMts of work of, at the meeting of the National Educational Associa- 
tion in 1884, 342; in Prof. Felix Adier's Workingman's School, 342; 
in Chicago, 345 ; Dr. Belfield on the mental effect of, 350 ; in the Penn- 
sylvania State College, 351 ; Prof. Louis E. Reber in support of, 351, 
352 ; in the College of the City of New York, 352 ; in thirty-one schools 
in the city of New York [wo^e], 352 ; in the Tulane University, 353 ; in 
the Miller School at Crozet, Va., 353; in Girard College, 353; in the 
Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical College, 355 ; in the Denver 
(Col.) University, 355 ; in the public schools of Philadelphia, 356 ; in 
twenty-four of the States of the Union, 359 ; in the Agricultui'al and 
Mechanical College of Texas, 359 ; part of the course of pnblic instruc- 
tion by Massachusetts and Connecticut, 360; in the Le Moyne Normal 
Institute, 362 ; in the University of Michigan, 363 ; laid on the table 
by the National Educational Association, 363, 364 ; in the State Univer- 
sity, Cleveland, and Toledo, 0., 364; is leading captive the imagination 
of the American people, 367 ; the purpose of, in the schools of Europe, 
368 ; progress of — its extent greater than its quality, 372 ; acquisition 
by the hand of the arts through which man expresses himself in things, 
380; a series of educational generalizations in things, 380. 

Manual training school the child of the kindergarten, 5 ; destined to unite 
science and art, 5 ; its highest text-books tools, 7; must be made part 
of the pubUc sy.stem of education, 112; gain of the pupil of, 122 ; pupil 



448 INDEX. 

of, constructs a machine, breatlies into it the breath of life, and with it 
moves mountains, 201 ; method.s of, twenty times more valuable than 
the unscientific methods of the trade-shop, 219; pupil of, is an investi- 
gator, his reasoning opens new fields of thought with every stroke of 
the chisel, 220; pupil of, gets as much again intellectual benefit from 
the laboratory as he would if the laboratory equivalent in time were 
given to book-study, 221 ; laboratoiT exercises of, a great strain upon 
the mental constitution, and hence highly educational, 222 ; pupils of, 
love it — an incident, 223 ; method of the, is tlie expression of ideas in 
things, 245 ; realizes the idea of Bacon, Comenius, Pestalozzi, and Froe- 
bel, 245. 

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, its models of mechanical manipula- 
tion presented by the Emperor of Russia, 66 ; first institution of learn- 
ing in the United States to adopt manual training, 333 ; manual training 
adopted by, in 1876, 334 ; resolution of thanks for a series of rhodels, 
presented by the Emperor of Russia, adopted by, 334, 335. 

Massachusetts, legislature of, adopts manual training as part of the public 
school couise of, 360. 

Maudslay, Henry, his improvement of the lathe made it the king of the 
machine-tool shop, 33 ; without his slide-rest Watt's engine could not 
have been made, 35 ; through his slide-rest alone the mechanic is able 
to make two things exactly alike, 92 ; slide-rest of, an automaton truer 
than the human eye, more cunning than the human hand, 200, 201. 

Maudsley, Dr. Henry, on the contribution of the muscular sense to mental 
operations, 147 ; on the impossibility of thinking without physical ex- 
pression, 149. 

Mechanic, the, who makes a machine that multiplies products is in the front 
rank of the civilizers of the race, 160; prospects of the skilled, in life, 
lYO; did more to hasten the world's progress from 1740 to 1840 than 
all the statesmen of previous ages, 171 ; splendid career which this age 
opens to the educated, 182; tremendous power wielded by, 183; has 
wrought an industrial revolution, 185; works of, i^eflect honor upon, 
187; stands the test of scrutiny better than the merchant, 225; trained 
in things, 225. 

Mechanics, skilled, the use of automatic tools increases rather than dimin- 
ishes the demand for, 94 ; of the early time had none of the advantages 
of the manual training school, 172; their sufferings and misfortunes, 
172 ; no such failure of, as there is of merchants, 227 ; thoroughness of 
training of, 239. 

Mediaeval period, the speculative philosophy of, still projects its baleful in- 
fluence over our institutions of learning, 185; grapliic picture of society 
in, by Winwood Reade, 280, 281 : the art of war only flourished in, 381 ; 
precarious condition of the serfs in — fate of — to be killed in battle or 
die of starvation, 281 ; causes of the moral and intellectual darkness of 
the, 281, 282 ; causes of the moral and intellectual torpor of the people 



INDEX. 449 

of, 2*^4 ; conferred upon man two great blessings, and left a legacy of 
evil, 289 ; degradation of woman in the, 366. 

Memory cultivated at the expense of the reason, 200. 

Men sold for sixpence apiece in Asia, 269. 

Meiiander, lofty moial precepts of, 139. 

Mental acquirement, a, is a tlieorem — something to be proved, 144. 

Mental development, law of, 131; which is most conducive to, doing things, 
or memorizing words, 376. 

Mental training, exclusively, does not produce a symmetrical character, 244- 

Merchants, percentage of failure of, in Chicago from IS'ZO to 1881, 211; 
three per cent, of, only, succeed, 211 ; ninety-seven percent, of, go to the 
wall, 212; cost of failures of, borne by the public, 212; ninety-seven 
per cent, of, mistake their avocation, 212 ; failure of, made too easy, 213 ; 
honor of, in France [note], 213; ninety-seven in one liundred fail, 225 ; 
cause of failures of, 229 ; selfishness of — do not seek for justice, or to 
find truth, 230 ; who compromise with their creditors, and subsequently 
accumulate fortunes, rarely repay the forgiven debt, 230 ; cause of fail- 
ure of, 242. 

Mercury, bronze statue of, at the Museum of Naples, 47. 

Michigan, University of, manual training in, as described by Instructor 
Lieut. M. E. Cooley, 363. 

Microscope, the work of the hand, 156. 

Milford, Mass., manual training in, 342. 

Miller Manual Training School, the, of Crozet, Ya., 353. 

Miud, the, mental laws of, 132, 133 ; moral laws of, 133 ; and the hand are 
natural allies, 144; indulges in false logic without instant detection, 145; 
the hand its moral rudder, its balance-wheel, 145 ; influenced by the 
hand thiough the muscular sense, 148 ; steadied by the wise counsel of 
the practical hand, 225 ; steadied and balanced by the study of things, 
225 ; devises a watch, and the hand makes it, 240; fails when it at- 
tempts to execute its devices, 240 ; succeeds when tlie hand executes its 
plans, but fails in merchandizing, law, and justice, 240; should not be 
stored with facts unless they are to be applied to things, 245 ; how it 
began to assert its empire over matter, 249. 

Moline, 111., manual training in, 342. 

Montclair, N. J., manual training in, 342. 

Moors, the, in Spain in the Middle Ages constituted a glowing exception to 
the general prevalence of superstition and ignorance, 282 ; skilled in all 
the arts, 282. 

Morality, springs from intelligence, 113; is not a mere sentiment, a barren 
ideality, 142; of Christ and Paul, 142; is a vital principle whose ex- 
emplification consists in doing justice, 142 ; cannot be acquired by mem- 
orizing a series of maxims, 143; of a community is in the ratio of its 
intelligence, 238. 

Morrissey, John, his brief autobiography, 314, 315. 



450 INDEX. 

Mother, the, in the arms of, the infant mind rapidly unfolds, 365. 

Moulding, the oldest of human discoveries, 46. 

Murray, Matt, inventor of flax machinery, 84. 

Muscular sense, the, its discovery by Sir Charles Bell, 146 ; its power over 

the movements of the frame — walking, etc, 146 ; Dr. Henry Maudsley 

on the, 147 ; actions of essential elements in mental operations, 147 ; 

sharpened to marvellous fineness by constant use, 148 ; if trained in the 

direction of truth, it^will react in the direction of rectitude, on the mind, 

148, 149. 
Mushet, David, an English inventor and author, 84; his discovery of the 

value of black band iron-stone, 117; his papers on iron and steel, 117; 

sprung from the labor class, 117. 
Mythology, the highest place in its Pantheon given to Vulcan, the God of 

Fire, 70. 

N. 

Napoleon, the incarnation of selfishness, 134, 135; the infamous, plundered 
the conquered capitals of Europe, 294. 

Nasmyth, James, invented the steam-hammer in 1837, and applied the 
principle of it to the pile-driver in 1845, 76. 

Nation, the, that degrades labor is ripe for destruction, 253 ; that loses its 
population by emigration is in its decadence, 294. 

National debts of Europe, amount of, thirty years ago, 286 ; doubled since 
1850, 290 ; cause of the rapid increase of, 290 ; represent a series of 
colossal crimes against the people, 291 ; with relation to them, the peo- 
ple are divided into two classes — one class owns them, the other class 
pays interest on them, 291 ; in one class they are a vested right, in the 
otlier a vested wrong, 291 ; how they can be paid, and education pro- 
moted at the same time, 292 ; can be paid only by disbanding the stand- 
ing armies, 295 ; will reduce their governments to bankruptcy unless 
standing armies are disbanded, 296. 

National Educational Association, matmal training exhibits at, 1884, meet- 
ing of, 342; meeting of 1885 adopts a resolution endorsing the kinder- 
garten, 363 ; illogical action of, in laying upon the table a resolution 
endorsing manual training, 363, 364. 

Nations, the rise, progress, and decay of, 252, 253 ; sink as the column of 
debt rises, 297. 

Neilson, James B., inventor of the hot-blast, 84 ; revolutionizes the processes 
of iron manufacture, 117; sprang from the labor class, and is made a 
member of the Royal Society, 117. 

New England, system of education of, moulded the character of the civil- 
ization of the United States, 235 ; difference between the civiUzation 
of, and that of South Carolina, measured by the difference in their 
respective educational systems, 235 ; educational system of, is unscien- 
tific, 239. 



INDEX. 451 

New Haven, Conn., manual training in, 342. 

Newcomen helps to solve the steam-power pioblein, 15. 

Nineveh, bronze castings recovered from the ruins of, 46, 

Nobility above price in the eleventh century, for sale in the thirteenth, and 

soon afterwards oifered as a gift, 286. 
Norway appropriates money for teaching hand-cunning in the schools, 368. 



0. 

Object teaching, example of, 4 ; the corner-stone of the kindergarten and 
the manual training school, 129; an analysis of, with examples, 200. 

Observation, the power of, resides chiefly in the hand, 380. 

Ohio, high rank of, industrially, 364 ; makiug great strides towards a more 
practical system of education, 364; State University of, manual train- 
ing in, 364 ; prosperity of the Case School of Applied Science in, 364; 
manual training schools of Cleveland and Toledo, in, 364. 

Omaha, Neb., manual training in, 342. 



Palissy, Bernard, sketch of his career, 231, 232, 233; burns the furniture 
of his house in the cause of art, 232 ; is cast into prison for heresy — 
his defiance of King Henry III., 232; dies in the Bastile, 233; was 
right, and his devotion to art rendered him immortal, 233, 234 : struggle 
of, over the furnace in the cause of art, was mentally and morally nor- 
mal, while the opposition he encountered was abnormal, 234; mind of, 
was developed normally, while the minds of the millions of men who 
permitted him to die unfriended were developed abnormally, 234; will- 
ing to starve for his art, and ready to die for his faith, 234, 

Papin helps to solve the steam-power problem, 15, 

Paris Exposition, exhibit of models of tool practice in the Imperial Technical 
School, Moscow, Russia, at the, 331. 

Parker, Col. Francis W., declares that the application of science to methods 
of instruction would produce a radical change in all school work, 205 ; 
his forcible exposition of the defects of prevailing methods of instruction, 
205, 206, 207 ; asserts that teachers are faithful, honest, and earnest, 
but ignorant of the history and science of education, 207, 364. 

Patriotism can be indulged with good reason only in the United States, 323. 

Penmanship, automatism in teaching, in the schools of the United States, 
as shown by the Walton report, 198. 

Pennsylvania State College, manual training in the, 351, 

Pennsylvania State Prison, statistics — five-sixths of the inmates of, had 
attended public schools, and the same number were without trades, 182. 

Pericles boasted that he could not be bribed, but robbed all Greece to em- 
bellish Athens, and was convicted of peculation and fined, 255. 



452 INDEX. 

Persia, no provision in, for either the mental or moral training of woman, 
366 ; tlie boy in, excluded from the presence of his father till the fifth 
year, 367. 

Peru, 111., manual training in, 342. 

Pestalozzi, the school he struggled in vain to establish, 2; his definition of 
education, 12; his condemnation of the old system of education, 126 ; 
foresaw the kindei'garten and the manual training school, 245. 

Phidias familiar with the turning lathe, 33. 

Philadelphia, manual training made part of the public school system of, 
353 ; rules of the public schools of, 355, 356 ; report of a committee of 
the Board of Education of, in regard to manual training, 356, 357 ; hand- 
training introduced into the public schools of, 358. 

Philosophers, the, little, time to speculate with, 180. 

Philosophy established on a scientific basis — the study of natural phenom- 
ena, 153 ; of the Greeks scorned both science and art, 257. 

Physical development, law of, 131. 

Pile-driver, the steam-hammer principle applied to the, 76; power of 
the, 76. 

Pilgrims, the product of the progress of all the ages, 308. 

Pine, in the forest and in lumber, 21 ; description of the tree by the son of 
a lumberman, 21 ; uses of, commerce in, supply of, 22 ; sources of in- 
formation of students in regard to — newspapers and encyclopedias, 25. 

Plato, his theory of the divine origin of caste, 123 ; blinded by half-truths, 
124; how he was controlled by his environment, 124: his theory of the 
importance of early training, 125 ; his contempt for the useful arts, 176, 
177, 369; regarded the soul's residence in the body as an evil, 256; 
opinion of, that the majority is always dull and always wrong, 280 ; 
the creation of his Divine Dialogues depended upon the useful arts, 383. 

Pliny, affection of, for his slaves, 139. 

Plutarch, sublime moral teachings of, 1 38 ; on the death of his daughter, 
139. 

Poets, the, little time to sentimentalize with, 180 ; more highly esteemed 
than civil engineers, machinists, and artisans, 185. 

Poole, Dr. William F., courtesy of, to the students of the Chicago Manual 
Training School, 348. 

Poverty, its final abolition depends upon the multiplication of the useful 
arts, 883. 

Power, generation of, the object of education, 244; to generate and store 
up either mental or physical, not to be exerted, is a waste of energy, 
245. 

Printing, the art of, essential to progress in the useful arts, 73; not so nec- 
essary to progress in the so-called fine arts, 73 ; removes the seal from 
the lips of learning, 286 ; makes every discovery in science and every 
invention in art the heritage of all the ages, 286; the invention of, par- 
alyzed authority, 287. 



INDEX. 468 

Progress, if Guttenberg had rested content with an idea, there would have 
been no printing-press, 152; if Watt, Stephensoi), and Fulton iiad 
stopped at words, there would have been neither railways nor steam- 
ships, 152; dates from the beginning of the seventeenth century, 153; 
slow until within one hundred years, 153; due not to the men who 
make laws, but to the men who make things, 160 ; of the world towards 
a higher appreciation of the value of the useful arts, 172; of moral 
ideas shown by the honors lavished upon the memory of heroes, 234 ; 
can find expression only in things, 243 ; the path of, a rugged road, 381 ; 
its steps consist of improvements in the useful and beautiful arts, 382 ; 
the lines on which educational, is to be sought, 385. 

Property, no security for, in a community devoid of education, 237; intelli- 
gence alone confers a sacred character upon, 237 ; may be protected by 
a hired soldiery, or by public sentiment enlightened by education, 238; 
the main purpose of governments is to protect, but nearly all the gov- 
ernments of history have been destroyed in the effort to fulfil this func- 
tion of their existence, 238; in slaves, failure of the United States to 
protect, 238 ; rights of, in English land, about to be disturbed, 238 ; not 
sacred unless honestly acquired and honestly held, 238 ; all in the United 
States may be devoted to education by the ballot, 324. 

Prudence, extreme, consistent with rectitude, 136 ; selfishness deified under 
the name of, 311. 

Public lands of the United States squandered by Congress, 317; history of 
waste of, by Henry D. Lloyd, in the Chicago Tribune^ 317, 318, 319. 

Public schools of New England, 309; the old system of education put into 
the, 303; popular idea of the, 310; neither science nor art taught in 
the, 310; revived the Greco-Roman subjective system, 310. 

Public schools of the United States, attendance in, not compulsory — some 
children enter them, and some do not, 316; leave out that which most 
nearly concerns the business of life, 325. 

Pugilist, how John Morrissey became a, 314, 315. 

Pullman, George M., Trustee of the Chicago Manual Training School Asso- 
ciation, 346. 

Purdue University, pronounced success achieved in manual training in, un- 
der the directorship of Professor Goss, 341. 

R. 

Railroad, the, influence of, upon the destinies of mankind, 170; taxes to the 
utmost nearly every department of the useful arts, 171; incompetency 
of management of, as shown by shrinkage in valuv,s of stocks of, 210; 
in the proprietor of, the two great elements of modern power, land and 
steam, are united, 321; proprietor of the, is a king, 321; monstrous 
claims of the proprietor of, 315. 

Reading, automatism of teaching, in the schools of the United States, as 
shown by the Walton report, 197; Colonel Parker declares that pre- 



454 • INDEX. 

vailing methods of instruction in, are " utterly opposed to a mental law 
about whicli there can be no dispute," 206. 

Keason, in existing systems of education, allowed to slumber, 200. 

Reber, Prof. Louis E., in support of manual training, 352. 

Reform — demand for, 371. 

Revolution — educational, 1883-4, 371. 

Richard I. presents King Arthur's sword Excalibar to Tancred, 71. 

Right, of the poor child to equal education sacred, 376. 

Roberts, Richard, a great English inventor of the eighteenth century, 84. 

"Rocket," the, George Stephenson's first locomotive, 118. 

Roebuck, Dr. John, a patron of Watt, 84. 

Roman aristocrats, were refined and accomplished, 276, 277 ; savage con- 
test for supremacy among the, 277. 

Roman civilization the product of all that had gone before, 260. 

Roman literature, possessed no saving quality, 275; did not represent the 
Roman people, 275. 

Roman State, the, slavery the corner-stone of, 265. 

Romans, the, had no peer. either in courage or fortitude, 264; vices of, 
shown in the character of Appius, the Decemvir, 264 ; virtues of, shown 
in the character of Virginius, 265; sense of justice of, swallowed up in 
lust of power, 266 ; early triumphs of industrial, 268 ; indebted to slaves 
for all the arts, 269 ; philosophy of, so shallow as to render them callous 
to the great crimes upon which the State rested, 272 ; debasing influ- 
ence of the Greek philosophy upon, 274 ; under the Empire rewarded 
vice and punished virtue, 274 ; preferred Caesar, Caligula, and Nero to 
Cato, Germanicus, and Agricola, 274; retrograded towards a state of 
savagery under the Empire, 275 ; became absolutely selfish, and hence 
totally depraved, 276. 

Rome, the decline of, caused by the failure of the fuel supply, and by her 
neglect of the useful arts, 63, 64 ; had she possessed great mechanics 
her fall might have been averted, 64 ; her civilization culminated at the 
limit of the application of iron to the useful arts, 83 ; a pen-picture of 
the decline of, 83 ; her splendors and her degradation, 138 ; fall of, 
stopped the study of physiology, 153 ; the dominion of, logical — vigorous 
but pitiless, 263 ; all the great races mingled in, 264 ; laws of, show the 
stamina of her people, 265 ; supply of laborers for, maintained by de- 
populating conquered countries, 265 ; in the train of the legions return- 
ing to, were men, women, and children destined to slavery, 265 ; laws of, 
in regard to slaves, terrible, 265 ; for the free citizen of, to labor with his 
hands was more disgraceful than to die of starvation, 266 ; free citizen 
paupers of, crying " bread and circuses," 266 ; education in, confined to 
politics and war, 266 ; became the great robber nation of the world, 
266 ; was on the land what Greece had been on the sea — a pirate, 266 ; 
the spoil of conquered countries used to bribe courts, senators, and the 
populace, 267 ; nothing safe in, from the hand of rapacity, 267 ; grew 



INDEX. 455 

rich through plunder, and poor in public and private virtue, 267 ; bribery 
in, 268 ; gieat social change in, after the fall of Greece and Carthage and 
the reduction of Asia, 268 ; summary of the causes of the fall of, 268; 
scenes immediately preceding the fall of, 269, 270 ; the seat of all the 
world's learning, 270 ; the wise men of, powerless to help their fellow- 
men, because their philosophy was false, 270; metaphysical philo.sophy 
of, 270, 271 ; the philosophy of, furnished an excuse for slavery, 271 ; 
suffrage in, the subject of open traffic, 271, 272; noted men of, ignorant 
of the cause of the disorders which afflicted the body politic, 272 ; in the 
city of, vice reigned supreme, while in the provinces there was a middle 
class by whom all the domestic virtues were practised, 314; no culture 
in, for girls till late in the Empire, 366, 

Romulus and Remus, legend of, 259. 

Rousseau, the school he described, 2 ; his opinion that the poor need no ed- 
ucation, 124; his theory of the vital importance of early training, 125 ; 
his definition of education, 126; his appreciation of the importance of 
the education of woman, 125, 126 ; his condemnation of the old system 
of education, 126 ; declaration of, that education is nothing but habit, 
245. 

Runkle, Dr. John D., his declaration that public education should touch 
practical life in a larger number of points, 202 ; the founder of manual 
training in the United States, 333 ; excerpts from the report of, in 1876, 
recommending the adoption of manual training by the Massachusetts 
Institute of Technology, 333, 334 ; letter of, to the author, containing an 
exposition of the theory of manual training, with an account of its origin 
in the mind of, 337, 338 ; assists in introducing manual training into 
Girard College, 354. 

Ruskin, on finding the truth in things [jiote], 145 ; on disciplining the fingers 
in the laboratory of the goldsmiths [note], 148 ; on learning by labor 
what the lips of man .could niever teach [note], 152 ; tribute of, to labor 
[note], 161 ; on rogues, a manufactured article [note], 237 ; on how na- 
tional debts bear upon labor [note], 291 ; on how standing armies are 
supported [note], 293. 

Russia, arbitrary act of, in 1770, in relation to the export of iron, 115; 
solves the problem of tool instruction by the laboi-atory process, 331 ; 
manual training introduced into all the technical schools of, 333. 

Russia, Emperor of, presents one hundred models of mechanical manipula- 
tions to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 69 ; offers John Ar- 
nold five thousand dollars for a duplicate of his George III. watch, 86. 



S. 
San Francisco, Cal., manual training in, 342. 

Sankey Canal, the, authorized upon condition that boats plying upon it 
should be drawn by men only, 179. 



456 INDEX. 

Saracens, the friends of education, of science, and art, 282 ; inventors of 
cotton-paper, promoters of all the industries, including agriculture, 282, 
283 ; driven from the soil they had made to blossom like the rose, 283; 
ameliorating influence of, upon the ignorance and superstition of the 
Middle Ages, 285. 

Savage, the, how he is trained, 9; helplessness of, 11 ; how he is taught to 
hunt and fish, 176 ; is tauglit what he needs to know in his condition, 
and nothing else, 181 ; if his education were as unscientific as that of 
the civilized boy, the race would perish, 21 5-; ninety-nine times in a 
hundred he traces the footsteps of his enemy in the forest, 215, 216; 
education of, is scientific, 216; in the practical character of the training 
of, consists its excellence, 217; mystery which envelops skill of, solved, 
219; ignorant, in his primitive state, of all the arts, 278. 

Savonarola, the hater of abuses in the Roman Catholic Church, 234; at the 
deatli-bed of Lorenzo de Medici, 235 ; shaking thrones and making proud 
prelates tremble, 235. 

Savory helps to solve the steam-power problem, 15. 

Saw-mills, opposition to their introduction in England, 178. 

School, of the future, 2; proposed by Ruskin [note], 180. 

Schools, the, have not moved forward with events, 154 ; are still dominated 
by mediasval ideas of speculative philosophy, 154; as an industrial 
agency are a failure, 202 ; were established as a bulwark of liberty, 202 ; 
denounced, 371 ; must be transformed from the ornamental type of 
Gieece into laboratories for the development of useful men and women, 
384 ; a vast number of, have been dedicated to the new education — are 
they to be developed into ideal schools? 385. 

Schoolmaster, the, and the Reformer, 371 ; the old, and the new education, 
375. 

Schools of England, arraignment of, by Herbert Spencer, 325. 

Schwab, Dr. Erasmus, atid "The Work School in the Common School," 368. 

Science, effect of divorce of, from art, 11 ; through printing every discovery 
in, becomes the heritage of future ages, 286. 

Scientific education, simplicity of, 207, 208 ; difference between, and unscien- 
tific, 217 ; description of, by Miss S. E. Blow, 218, 219 ; is natural educa- 
tion, 223 ; brightens, stimulates, and develops, while automatic stupefies, 
223, 224. 

Scientist, the, a public benefactor, 160; studies the stars, the earth, and the 
air in the light of tlie flames of persecution, 287. 

Scott, Frank J,, contributor to the fund for the founding of the Toledo, 
Ohio, Manual Training School, 364. 

Scott, Jesup W., the founder of the Toledo Manual Training School, 358. 

Scott, Maurice, contributor to the fund for the founding of the Toledo 
Manual Training School, 364. 

Scott, William F., contributor to the fund for the founding of the Toledo 
Manual Training School, 364. 



INDEX. 457 

Sculpture, limit of, reached in Greece, IS. 

Scythians, among the, the iron sword was a god, 70. 

Segovia, manufactures of, destroyed by tlie expulsion of the Moors from 
Spain, 283. 

Seligman, Mr. Joseph, munificence of, established Professor Adler's Worlc- 
ingman's School in New York City on a firm basis, 345. 

Selfishness, the arch-enemy of virtue, 134; maxims in honor of, 134; Na- 
poleon a colossal example of the folly of, 135 ; in conflict with the true 
spirit of civilization, 135; causes revolutions and destroys governments, 
135; is blind of one eye — sees only one side of a cause, 136; let not 
prudence be confounded with, 136 ; extreme, the synonym of depravity, 
136; promoted by prevailing systems of education, 136; promoted by 
a mercantile career, 230; of the lawyer, the judge, and the legislator, 
230, 231; as it recedes from the mind, justice assumes its appropriate 
place as tlie controlling element in human conduct, 233 ; the soui'ce of 
all social evil, 247 ; transformed Roman courage into cruelty, and Roman 
fortitude into brutal stoicism, 266; transformed the government of 
Rome from a pure democracy into an oligarchy of wealth, 276 ; van- 
quishes itself in Rome, 277; the equivalent of savagery, 277; deified 
under the name of prudence, 311 ; calling it prudence led to confounding 
right and wrong, 311 ; effects of, in the nineteenth century the same as 
in the first, 312; the mind charged with, through subjective educational 
.processes, 326 ; ends in a struggle which ends in a revolution, 326. 

Seneca, sublime moral precepts of, contrasted with the horrors of the glad- 
iatorial games, 138 ; his doctrine of humanity, 139 ; ignores slavery, the 
slave, the laborer, and the useful arts, 268 ; morals of, glittering gener- 
alities, politics of, practical, 269 ; put money in his purse, 269 ; charged 
with complicity in the Piso conspiracy, and banished for the crime of 
adultery, 269. 

Serfs of the Middle Ages the mercenary troops of the modern State, 290. 

Service — the greatest thing in the moral world, 378. 

Seville, silk industry of, 292; looms of, silenced in the seventeenth century, 
283. 

Sewing-machine, the, its accuracy, 87; it illustrates the interdependence of 
the practical arts, 87 ; it multiplies garments beyond the power of figures 
to express, 87. 

Sheffield, Lord, his estimate of the value of Henry Cort's improvements in 
iron and the steam-engine of Watt, 115 ; his declaration of the purpose 
of the establishment of the American colonies, 202. 

Sheffield, town of, its insignificance in 1715, 116; its manufacturing impor- 
tance now, 116. 

Skill being prolific of good should be brought to bear upon educational 
systems, 132. 

Slavery existed in the United States when Horace Mann declared it to be 
the cause of the degradation of labor and the laborer, 189 ; aided by 



458 INDEX. 

England in its struggle for survival, 189 ; influence of, not yet extinct, 
189; has kept its brand of shame upon the useful arts for thousands of 
years, 190; how the Egyptian was reduced to, 250; and labor were 
synonymous terms in Rome, 265 ; a state of, is a state of war, 265 ; con- 
founded with freedom in the United States, 311 ; negroes escaping from, 
called fugitives from justice, 311; justified in Faneuil Hall, the cradle 
of liberty, 311 ; tried only by the test of self-interest, 312 ; in the North 
it faded away, in the South it flourished, 312 ; climate conditions, not 
education, saved this continent from the scourge of, 312, 313; question 
of continuance of, in the United States, settled by violence, as savages 
settle controversies, 313. 

Slaves, in Rome, laws in relation to, 265 ; a million killed in the course of 
the servile rebellion in Sicily, 265 ; exposed to wild beasts in the arena 
for the popular amusement, 265 ; all industrial pursuits in Rome carried 
on by, 266 ; labor of, in Rome, cheaper than that of cattle, 266 ; con- 
struct all the great public works in Rome, 269 ; strike for liberty in 
Rome, and are slaughtered, 271 ; clank of the chains of, in the streets 
of Boston, 311. 

Smeaton helps to solve the steam-power problem, 15 ; the best workman of 
his time, 85. 

Smiles, Samuel, declares that the automata of the Middle Ages led to the 
useful automatic tools of the- eighteenth century, 35 ; his peculiar views 
about Maudslay's great invention, 36 ; his history of the Dutch and Ger- 
man mechanics who contributed to the solution of the problem of the 
application of mineral coal to smelting purposes, 64 ; his graphic pict- 
ure of the versatility of the smith, 71 ; his pen-picture of the steamship 
Warrior "breasting the billows o'f the North Sea," 85; shows the true 
springs of English greatness in his " Lives of the Engineers," 172; 
shows the origin of useful arts in England in his great work on the 
Huguenots, 185. 

Smith, the, gives direction to the course of Empire, 62 ; a man of great con- 
sequence in England in the early time, 71 ; name of, descends to more 
families than that of any other profession, 71 ; versatility of, 71, 72; 
conducts the engineering at tlie siege of Berwick, 72 ; ancient, kin to all 
the ages through his works, 74. 

Social evils, are the product of defective education, 325. 

Social problems, solution of, to be sought through a radical change in edu- 
cational methods, 248 ; the railway and factory are new factors in, 321 ; 
of America cannot be settled as those of Europe are, by emigration, 326. 

Solieis, Prof. G., the chief supporter of manual training in France, 368. 

South Carolina, educational system of, confined to a class, as opposed to 
universal education in New England, 235. 

Spain, ruined by the expulsion of the Moors, 283; destitution in the chief 
cities of, 283 ; danger that the royal family of, would go hungry to bed, 
283 ; is bankrupt, 296. 



INDEX. 459 

Speculation, rages on the exchanges of all large American cities, ?^22 ; af- 
fects every class in tlie community, 322 ; stimulates bad passions, and 
creates a distaste for labor, 322. 

Speculative philosophy, only resource of the ancients, 153; dominated the 
world from the fail of Rome to the time of Bacon, 153. 

Speech, must be incarnate in things or it is dead, 141 ; man would lose the 
power of, if his words should cease to be realized in things, 149; de- 
pendent upon objects for its existence, 150; has its origin not less in 
external objects than in the mind, 150 ; would be lost if the senses 
should cease to be impressed by things, 150 ; freedom of, and of thought, 
catch-penny phrases, 192. 

Spelling, automatism in teaching, in the schools of the United States, as 
shown by the Walton report, 198, 199. 

Spencer, Herbert, on the defects of the schools of England, 325 ; the con- 
trast between his views and the dictum of Dr. Dwight of Yale Uni- 
versity, 3*74 ; pointed out, the analogy between early methods of educa- 
tion and barbarism, 377. 

Standing armies, a legacy of evil from the Middle Ages, 289 ; recruited from 
the ranks of the serfs, 290 ; the dominant feature of European public 
economy, 290 ; number of, 290 ; collateral evils of, 290 ; responsible for 
illiteracy and pauperism, 292 ; what tliey cost and wliat they stand in 
the way of, 293; how they are supported [iiote], 293; an assumption of 
the barbarism of man, 300 ; stand in the way of education and pros- 
perity, 303 ; must everywhere soon disappear before the march of edu- 
cation, 303 ; are as abnormal in Europe as slavery was in the United 
States, 303, 304 ; are the instruments of tyranny, the last analysis of self- 
ishness, 304 ; the result of the Greco-Roman methods of education, 304. 

State, a, growth of, depends upon progress in the practical arts, 151 ; ceas- 
ing to advance, its language ceases to grow, becomes stationary, stag- 
nates, 151. 

Statesmen, not the authors of English progress, 159 ; Buckle's scathing ar- 
raignment of, 160; more highly esteemed than civil engineers, machin- 
ists, and artisans, 185. 

Statutes, tliat wear out in a year, 241. 

Steam, power of, known to the ancients, 14 ; makes all civilized countries 
prosperous and great, 161 ; must be harnessed at the forge and in the 
shop to enable it to do its work, 170; power exerted by, in the manu- 
factories of Great Britain equal to the manual labor of four hundred 
millions of men, 184; may be likened to an idea which finds expression 
through the engine — a thing, 245; the railway and the factory two 
great products of, 321. 

Steam-hammer, the, in works of Mr. Crane, Chicago, 75 ; in Pittsburg, Pa., 
and at Krupp's cast-steel works, Essen, Germany, 75 ; invention of, in 
1837, its accuracy, power, and delicacy, 76 ; application of the principle 
of, to the pile-driver in 1845, 76. 



460 INDEX. 

Steamship, the, influence of, upon the destinies of mankind, 170. 

Steel, Age of, great enterprises of the, dwarf the merely ornamental branches 
of learning, 179. 

Steele, Prof. A, J., Principal of the Le Moyne Normal Institute — letter of, 
to the Author, 362. 

Stephenson, Geoige, inventor of the locomotive, 84 ; sketch of his remark- 
able career, 118, 119; declines knighthood and a membership in the 
Royal Society, 119 ; the founder of the railway system of the world, 119. 

Stephenson, Robert, an English railway engineer, 84. 

Stick, Adam and the, 157; the symbol and instrument of power, 158. 

Stoics and philosophers of Rome, lofty moral sentiments of, in contrast with 
the Roman vices, 139. 

Suetonius, portrays the cruelties of the Caesars, but hints at no cause there- 
for inherent in the social system, 272. 

Suffrage, love of country in the United States is a due appreciation of the 
right of, 323 ; in the universality of the right of, lies the power of cor- 
recting all social evils, 324 ; destined to preservation forever in the 
United States, 324 ; attempt to limit, in New York accounted for by the 
prevalence of European ideas, 324; the right of, can be taken from the 
American people only by force, 324 ; standard of, lowered by ignorance 
and depravity, 325 ; when better informed it will be more honest, 325 ; 
with increased intelligence it will gain the power to grapple with social 
abuses, 325. 

Superstition, how it arose through ignorance and selfishness, 249. 

Sweden, five hundred slojd schools in, in 1882, 368; supports a school for 
the training of teachers of slojd schools at Naas, 369. 

Syria, the founders, smiths, and all the artisans of, were slaves, 56. 

T. 

Tacitus, his account of the execution of four hundred slaves for the murder 
of one man, 265 ; his lament at the decline of public virtue, 267 ; is si- 
lent on the subject of the infamy of slavery, and on the shame of de- 
grading labor, 272. 

Tancred the Crusader pays for King Arthur's sword Excalibar "four great 
ships and fifteen galleys," 71. 

Tarquins, the banishment of the, 264, 

Telegraph, the, influence of, upon the destinies of mankind, 170. 

Telephone, the work of the hand, 156. 

Telescope, the work of the hand, 155. 

Texas, Agricultural and Mechanical College of, 359. 

Theodoric, attempt of, to reconstruct the Roman civilization, 279 ; the order 
evoked from chaos by, to chaos soon returned, 280. 

Theorem, a, always a question solved, 144. 

Things both the subject and occasion of speech, 151; regarded as of less 



INDEX. 461 

vital importance than abstract ideas, 185 ; the false, easily detected in 
— examples, 224 ; tlie study of, steadies and balances the mind, 225 ; 
tlie trutii revealed only in, 243 ; ideas are mere vain speculations till 
embodied in, 243; the habit of expressing ideas in, should be formed 
in the schools, 245 ; the truths that are hidden in, 378 ; the integrity of 
the mind can be maintained only by the submission of its immature 
judgments to the verification of, 379 ; the source of ideas, 379 ; essen- 
tial to spiritual development, 384. 

Thinking, acting is the complement of, 244. 

Thought, must be incarnate in things, or it is dead, 141; is not even pres- 
ent to the thinker until he has set it forth, out of himself, 150; inde- 
pendent, of all mental processes the most difficult — habit, tradition, and 
reverence for antiquity unite to forbid it, 192. 

Thoughts must be expressed to have influence, 244 ; may be expressed most 
forcibly in things, 244. 

Thucydides arraigns the Greeks as falsifiers and perjurers, 255. 

Thurston, Robert H., on the tremendous power wielded by the mechanic, 
183. 

Toledo, 0., Manual Training School, inception of, due to the generosity of 
the late Jesup W. Scott and his three sons, 364; connected with the 
public high-school, 364, 365 ; students of, consist of both sexes, 365 ; 
the course for girls in, 365. 

Toledo, Spain, woollen manufactures of, transferred by the exiled Moors to 
Tunis, 283. 

" Tom All-alone's " in "Bleak House " — social philosophy of, 315. 

Tool practice, quickens the intellect, 114; engenders a thirst for wisdom 
114; history of, in England confirms this view, 114 ; the foundation of 
James Watt's culture, 119; George Stephenson's career an illustiation 
of the intellectual effect of, 119 ; testimony of the Director of the Arti- 
sans' School at Rotterdam, Holland, as to intellectual effect of, 121 ; 
testimony of Dr. Woodward, Director of the St. Louis Manual Training 
School, as to intellectual effect of, 121 ; testimony of M. Victor Delia 
Vos, Director of the Imperial Technical School of Moscow, as to intel- 
lectual effect of, 121 ; effect of, as shown by the experience of the Me- 
chanic Art School at Komotan, Bohemia, 122. 

Tools, influence of, upon modern civilization, 9 ; represent the steps of 
human progress, 10; the great civilizing agency of the world, 11. 

Touch, the master sense, whence all the other senses spring, 380 ; reigns 
throughout the body, and is the token of life in every part, 381 ; is the 
fundamental sense, the mother-tongue of, language, 381 ; its versatility, 
381. 

Townships of New England, their establishment logical, 309. 

Tradition, tyranny of, 124. 

Truth, the strugirle after, 233 ; the love of, natural, 233 ; heroes honor it, 
234 ; conspicuous through efforts to suppress it, 287. 



462 INDEX. 

Tulane, Paul, founder of the Tulane University of New Orleans, La., 358. 
Tulane University, manual training a prominent feature in the, 353. 
Turkish Empire, story of its origin through the art of forging, 61. 
Tweedism, what made it possible in the city of New York, 315. 
Types, through the medium of, the voice of genius is destined to reach to 
the ends of the earth, 286. 

U. 

United States, the, not at the front in the race of nations for industrial 
supremacy, 2U3; comparison of imports and exports of, with those of 
England, 203 ; industrially ill-balanced, 204 ; suffering from a paucity 
of skilled labor, 204 ; educational system of, very poor, as shown by the 
statistics of railway and commercial disasters, 224 ; educational system 
of, as poor morally as mentally, 224 ; neglect of education by, the most 
astonishing fact in the history of, 235 ; a scientific educational system 
forced upon the South by, would have averted the war of rebellion, 237 ; 
could not protect property in slaves, 238 ; social conditions in, similar 
to those prevailing in Europe, 313 ; illiteracy in, 313 ; increase of illiter- 
acy in, 313; every sixth man who votes in, is unable to write his name, 
313; land system of, rivals that of England in injustice, 317; history 
of the land system of, by Henry D. Lloyd, in the Chicago Tribune^ 317- 
319 ; the sentiment of patriotism justifiable only in, 323 ; the soldier of, 
is a citizen of, 323, 324. 

Universities, the men who have transformed the face of the earth came not 
from the, 185 ; Bacon's caustic remark in relation to the, 185 ; on Bacon's 
plan would have united science and art, 185. 

Use — the greatest thing in the material world, 378. 



Valerius, died so poor that he was buried at the public charge, 268. 

Venus, made the wife of Vulcan, the God of Fire, 70. 

Von Kaas, Rittmeister Claussen, lectures on the subject of manual training 

in Germany, 368. 
Vulcan, the God of Fire, given Venus to wife, the father of Cupid, 70. 



W. 

Waif, the, description of, by John Morrissey, 314; destined to become an 
equal citizen, 315; made Tweedism in New York City possible, 315; 
pollutes the fountains of justice, 315, 316 ; menaces the government with 
destruction, 316 ; permitted by the hundred thousand to develop into a 
savage, 316 ; power of, to tax civilized people, 316. 

Walton, George A., report of, in regard to investigation of the schools of 
Norfolk County, Mass., 196-199. 



INDEX. 463 

Wars, modern, of European nations involve no principle, 290. 

Washington University, manual training department of, established in 1878, 
338, 339; excerpts from tlie prospectus of, 1882-83, showing the pro"-- 
ress of manual training, 339, 340 ; founding of manual tiaining depart- 
ment of, due to the energy and foresight of Dr. Woodward first, and 
second, to the donations of private citizens, 340, 341. 

Watch Company, Elgin National, makes a thousand watches a day — all 
perfect, 87 ; makes two hundred thousand watch-screws in a few min- 
utes, 87. 

Watt, James, the last link in the chain of steam-engine inventors, 15; 
Dr. Driiper's eulogy of, 15; chief difficulty of, in perfecting the steam- 
engine, 84, 85 ; Smeaton's opinion that the engine of, could not be made 
to work with hand-made tools, 85 ; sketch of the life and career of, 119, 
120 ; a dull boy in school, 120 ; tribute of Sir Walter Scott to the great- 
ness of, 120 ; every incident in the life of, now eagerly sought for, 171. 

Weaving Machinery, improved, opposition to introduction of, in England, 
178. 

Whitney, Eli B., inventor of the cotton-gin, 84. 

William the Conqueror, his appreciation of the importance of land proprie- 
torship, 317. 

Williams, Koger, the champion of absolute freedom of thought and speech, 
309. 

Wilson, Dr. George, his panegyric on the hand, 145. 

Wisdom, the power of discriminating between what is true and what is 
false, 152 ; the hand used as the synonym of, because it is only in the 
concrete that the false is sure of detection, 152. 

Woman, tremendous influence of, upon the destinies of the human race, 
125 ; neglect of past ages to educate, a crime, 125 ; education of, more 
important than that oi man, 128 ; condition of, in a state of savagery, 
249 ; reform in education must begin with, 365 ; the education of, more 
imperative than that of man, 365 ; neglect of the education of, among 
the ancients, 366 ; degradation of, in the Middle Ages, 366 ; contempt 
of, by Bacon, Swift, Addison, and Johnson, 366 ; Shakespeare's tribute 
to, 366 ; Rnskin's worship of, 366 ; the purity of the home and the effi- 
ciency of the school depends upon, 367; in the van where the imagi- 
nation leads, 367; less selfish than man, 367; intuitions of, truei-, ideals 
higher, sense of justice finer, and of duty stronger than those of man, 
367 ; the teacher of man from the cradle to the grave, 367. 

Woodward, Dr. C. M., Director of the St. Louis Manual Training School, 
121 ; statement of, as to intellectual effect of manual training, 121 ; his 
account of the origin of the St. Louis school, 339, 

Wood-tui-ning laboratory, radical change of, from carpentry — from angles 
to spherical, cylindrical, and eccentric forms, 30 ; the value in the arts 
of the lathe, 30 ; its mythical origin, 33 ; its application and uses among 
the ancients, 84; fashionable in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries 



464 INDEX. 

in England and France, 34 ; purpose of, is not to make turners, but to 
educate boys, 39 ; the machineiy of, in motion, 39 ; pen-picture of the 
students in, 39; tli'e lesson in detail in, 40; tlie students at their lathes 
in, 43 ; the instructor passes upon the work of the class in, 44. 

Wootz, or Indian steel, produced near Golconda, and used in the fabrica- 
tion of Damascus blades, 72 ; millions of dollars expended in efforts to 
produce tlie equal of, 72. 

Words, weakness of, 141 ; cannot attain to definiteness save as living 
outgrowths of realities, 150; easy to juggle with, and make the worse 
appear the better reason, 224; educational systems still train in, rather 
than in things, 325, 326. 

Workingman's School and Free Kindergarten of New York City, the most 
comprehensive educational institution in the world, 342; scope of, 343; 
purpose of, identical with that of the manual training school, 343 ; 
methods of instruction in the, 343, 344. 



Y. 

Yarranton, Andrew, according to Patrick Edward Dove, was the founder of 
English political economy, 175. 

Z. 

Zenophon, after conducting the retreat of the Ten Thousand, led a detach- 
ment of Greeks on a pillaging expedition, 255. 



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